


Trick Of The Light

by Excellency



Category: The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: Blindness, Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Smarm, Temporary Character Death, spoilers in the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 19:12:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 57,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7813783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Excellency/pseuds/Excellency
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It goes wrong, more wrong, a little right, a lot more wrong, and finally right, but not until everyone's had a chance to angst about everything at great length. Kleenex may be needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trick Of The Light

Ray leaned out the front door and took a deep, appreciative breath of the balmy air outside. He had lived in the city for so long, his enjoyment of a very fine Saturday morning wasn't dimmed by the fumes from passing cars and buses. After watching the traffic with a happy, contented air for a few minutes, he finally turned back inside, reluctantly shutting the door behind him. "It's a beautiful day!" he called to Janine. 

Glancing up from her computer, she grimaced at him. "Thank you for reminding me what I'm missing," she retorted. 

Unrepentant, Ray grinned back at her sour expression. "You're leaving at noon, just think of what you have to look forward to in only another hour." 

Shaking her head, she returned to her work with a reluctant smile. When Ray was in a good mood, it was impossible to avoid sharing it with him. Or rather, his sharing it with you. 

Strolling over to the big, white car occupying most of the garage space, he ran a finger along the hood, admiring the velvety feel of the flawless, smooth polish. 

"Hey!" Winston popped out from the driver's side, scowling at him. "I just waxed that!" A neat pile of Q-tips on the brick flooring next to the open door indicated he had been detailing the interior with extraordinary care. 

Ray jerked his hand away from Ecto with exaggerated alarm, then began to chuckle as Winston grabbed a rag and came around to the front fender, squinting along the finish to find the spot Ray had touched and then rubbing at it furiously to erase any hint of a mark. "Come on," Ray said, "It's already perfect." 

"Not yet." With a last swipe at the imaginary smear, Winston stood back for a second admiring his own handiwork. The glare off Ecto's acres of chrome was nearly blinding. "But it will be before the summer season regional meets start and this year the old girl's going to take Best Of Show at them all, mark my words." 

"That would be great," Ray enthused. "Can I help get her ready for the first show?" 

Clapping him on the shoulder, Winston said, "The best help you could possibly give me is to keep Slimer the heck out of the garage with his sticky candy and green, slimy fingers. I'd have been this far two hours ago if he hadn't come along to 'help' me earlier." 

"Not to worry, I was just downstairs and he's fully occupied counting Peter's sit-ups, bench presses, and leg lifts." Ray smiled, amused at how hard Peter worked out to improve a body that needed very little improvement at all, kept in shape as it was by the challenging work of chasing ghosts all over the city burdened with a heavy proton pack. "I think it makes him feel better to hear his exercises counted in zillions rather than one by one." 

"It's his annual pre-beach panic, isn't it? I'd almost forgotten how he gets this time of year, mercifully enough." Standing back and tilting his head to get another angle, Zeddemore scanned the front grill and then bent to scrub at another infinitesimal flyspeck. "If you want to give me a hand, I'm getting all that crud off the control panels. You'll have to be careful not to breathe on any of the glass, I just got it all cleaned." 

Following him around to the open door, Ray peered inside at the spotless dashboard. "But Winston, I can't even see any dirt." 

"What?" Leaning down and scanning the interior, he pointed at first one area and then another. "Look at that mess! And over there!" 

All the indicated zones looked equally pristine to Stantz, and he shook his head ruefully. "I guess I'm not cut out for this level of competition, it all looks fine to me." 

Turning a scandalized look in his direction, Winston opened his mouth to explain what Ray was failing to see, then just sighed instead. "Guess not," he agreed amiably. 

With an apologetic shrug, Ray left him to his work and strolled back toward the stairs, idly wondering what the fourth member of their team was up to on this fine late-spring day. 

"Never mind him, Ray," Janine said consolingly as he neared her desk. "Winston's so obsessed he has a fit every time I even have a dirty thought within ten feet of that car." 

"You have dirty thoughts?" Ray inquired with well-feigned innocent surprise, a teasing sparkle in his eyes. As she began to color slightly, he compounded the offense by asking, "So where is Egon, anyway?" 

"You're getting as bad as Peter!" she snapped indignantly. 

"What?" he asked, eyes widening in dismay at the accusation. "What did I say? All I asked was where Egon is." 

"Third floor lab," she mumbled, concentrating fiercely on entering the invoice codes. 

"Thanks." Halfway up the stairs, he stopped and leaned over the rail, wondering aloud, "How would Winston know when you were having a dirty thought?" As her jaw tightened and she reached for the paperweight with a murderous glint in her eye, he fled the rest of the way upward. 

Pushing the half-open lab door aside, Ray craned his neck around looking for Egon. He found the tall physicist muttering to himself as he dug through one of the storage cabinets over in a corner. The floor and benches around him were covered with discarded sample containers, pieces of half-built equipment, and other assorted stuff the locker had been stuffed with. As he entered the room, Spengler stepped back from the cabinet with a triumphant "Hah!" 

"What have you found?" Ray asked interestedly. 

"Oh, hello, Ray," Egon greeted him, waving him over to see the label on the small, sealed container he had retrieved. "You recall the psycho-reactive slime Vigo the Carpathian was so liberally endowed with?" 

"How could I forget?" Stantz accepted the container, holding it up to the light coming through the nearest window in an attempt to see how much was inside. "Is this the last of it?" 

"I'm afraid so. I initially stored quite a lot of it for study, but we used most of the supply when we covered Peter with it." While coating Venkman with the slime had been necessary to allow him to impersonate a ghost in order to rescue Janine and Louis from Ghost Town, the most amusing part of the incident had been his final total loss of control and the slime's resultant attachment to him. The corners of Egon's mouth curved upward as he recalled how long it had taken Peter to calm down enough to be freed of the energetic, clinging mess. "We've used it successfully but never really studied it in the detail I'd like. Since I had some free time today I thought I'd work on a more detailed analysis of its physical and psychical-chemical properties." It was a dangling end and Egon hated leaving any phenomenon half-understood, whether he could use it in practical application or not. 

"Sounds good to me, what's first?" 

"Sequential destructive analysis, starting with the basic ectoplasmic properties, progressing through a series of chemical reactions, and then a complete mass spectrometer gas chromatograph analysis." He paused, pushing his glasses back into place. "Unless you have a theory that would require a different set of analyses." 

"No, not really," Ray said thoughtfully, turning the suggested course of action over in his mind. "Why such an exhaustive series of tests on the first sample, though?" 

"We have so little of it to work with that exactly what series of experiments we perform becomes critical if we're going to be able to reach a full understanding of the test subject before we run out of it. Even using the most conservative amounts of the slime for the basic tests I outlined, we'll only have enough left after that to run two more sequences at most, possibly only one depending on what tests we decide to use for the second series." 

Shaking the container he held to judge the mass of the semi-solid inside it, Ray nodded agreement. "I had no idea we'd used so much up. You know, when Vigo was loose and there were rivers of the stuff under the streets it would have been hard to believe we'd end up being so careful about hoarding a few ounces to get us through a couple experiments." 

Egon nodded as he stacked the displaced items back in the storage cabinet. "I sometimes wonder if I should be more diligent about collecting and preserving samples of the various ectoplasm types we frequently end up covered with, but I've come to the conclusion I don't have the storage room for all of it so I've tried to only collect the more interesting ones." 

"This stuff certainly qualifies." Moving over to the other bench, Ray began setting up the first test. Within minutes the two scientists were happily engrossed in their work. 

* * *

Several hours later they were reviewing the results from the first set of analyses and debating what tests to do on the second run. 

"What if we tried altering its properties slightly by exposing it to a measured high energy particle bombardment before running the same series of analyses we just did?" Ray asked, suiting action to thought with his customary enthusiasm. The next sample tube was positioned in front of a mounted thrower and the low whine of an accelerator began building as he waited for what should have been automatic confirmation. It was the most logical step to take considering their circumstances. 

Pulling a volume on interpretation of chromatograph spectra from the shelves on the far side of the room, Egon answered in a noncommittal 'Hmmmm,' without turning. Paging through the text, he was absorbed in looking for a spectral trace similar to the one they had obtained, and Ray's suggestion not only made sense but paralleled his own initial conclusion so his subconscious did not kick him into alertness with an automatic warning to pay more attention to what Ray was doing. 

Finger on the activation button, Ray pointed out, "A comparison of the variance in results could give us as much insight as a completely different set of experiments might." 

"Yes, it could be very enlightening," Egon replied absently, then looked up with the continuation of his train of thought based on the information he had just found, "but I really don't think it would be a good idea," on his lips, but it was already too late. 

The explosion was deafening in the confines of the lab, the sound of the shattered windows' glass striking the pavement below lost in the echoes that rumbled through the firehouse and the frantic calls from downstairs as Peter and Winston raced for the room. Lying close to the doors where he had fallen, Egon's head barely missed being smashed by the doors bursting inward as Peter arrived, fire extinguisher in hand. Dizzy, struggling to remain fully conscious as he rolled to his side and pushed the upper half of his body off the floor, Spengler watched Peter put out the small fire flickering on the main bench with a quick sweep of the extinguisher. His whole body stung and tingled in an odd way, but the feeling faded quickly and he forgot it entirely when his wandering attention focused on the limp, huddled form that was Ray. 

"Egon? Are you OK?" Helping him to his feet and brushing at the bits of debris that littered his uniform, Winston eyed him carefully, checking for signs of damage. 

"I'm fine," he replied automatically, though his balance wasn't quite what it ought to be yet and his field of vision was still gray out around the edges. The peculiar stinging feeling had dissipated entirely and he could tell he had sustained no noticeable injuries. Right then he was far more worried about Ray. Stepping around the up-ended table that had shielded him from at least part of the blast and its flying shrapnel, he headed for the corner where Peter was just lifting Ray to a sitting position. Winston in his wake, they converged on the other two, concerned inquiries on their lips dying away at the grim look Peter gave them as he turned. 

"He can't see," he said bluntly, one hand still steadying the younger man who sat swaying groggily in place. There were dark smudges from smoke staining his face and clothes and one or two minor cuts where slivers of glass had caught him, but he didn't look as bad as Egon had feared he would for being so close to the center of the explosion. 

Dropping shakily to his knees, Egon reached out and delicately brushed the singed bangs off Ray's forehead. "Raymond?" 

"Egon?" Turning a blank stare toward him, Ray's expression was far more abashed than indicative of the pain or fear he had to be feeling. "I'm sorry, I didn't wait for your answer. I ruined the sequential analyzer." 

"It's not important, I can build another sequencer easily enough," Egon replied in soothing tones. "Right now tending to your injuries is more important than any of the equipment." His touch shifted and he gently lifted each of Ray's eyelids, checking for obvious damage. There was a good chance flying glass had caused the damage rather than anything that would be more immediately visible, but Egon couldn't even see blood or the slight marks that would indicate scratches to the lenses. "I think we're going to have to give you a ride to the hospital." 

"I'll fire up Ecto," Winston said, springing up and heading for the door. "We can get him to the emergency room as fast as the paramedics could get here." 

"Upsy, Ray," Peter urged him, gently pulling Ray to his feet. "We can walk, can't we?" 

"Yeah," he replied weakly, struggling upright with Peter's help. "Everything else seems to work, I just can't see." He winced and put one hand to his head. "And I have this killer headache." 

"Entirely to be expected," Egon said. His own head was still ringing a bit but it didn't hurt enough to be worth mentioning. A fast scan had reassured him that Ray had sustained no other severe damage and he supported the tottering engineer on the side opposite from Peter. Between them, they assisted him downstairs and into the car. The ride to the hospital was tense, the light commentary forced as Peter made rude cracks about scientists with more equipment than intellect, the strain showing too clearly in his tone. Ray tried gamely to act like he wasn't suffering any great pain or anxiety, but he didn't do very well and his unspoken apprehension filled Ecto. 

Things didn't improve much once they arrived. Ray was whisked off after they'd waited on phenomenally uncomfortable vinyl chairs for two hours without attracting any attention. It was nearly another two hours before a nurse carrying a clipboard led Ray back to the waiting room and returned him to their care. Worried as hell, Peter was close to livid after the long wait and his usual suave persuasiveness had deteriorated to a snarling impatience. Winston and Egon had grown too worried themselves to spend energy on containing Peter's mood and surrounded Ray as if to check him for signs of any additional damage inflicted during his absence. When it became apparent Ray still could not see but was being released without treatment, Peter turned on the nurse and demanded, "What the hell have you been doing with him this whole time, playing Marco Polo in the therapy pool? Who's in charge here?" 

Unfazed by his histrionics, she checked the receipt being handed to the receptionist for tallying. "He was seen by several specialists. The physician in charge is Dr. Mozia." 

"Peter, I already talked with the doctors about my own condition and I'll tell you all about it on the way home. Can we just leave now?" Ray protested tiredly. 

Winston agreed that going home now was a good idea, but Egon's sidelong look to Venkman tacitly supported the request to speak directly to the physician. "Winston, why don't you get Ecto, it's further out than Ray should have to walk right now. I'll wait here with him." The weary note in Egon's voice explained why he didn't go get the car himself, but his voice was also steady enough to prove he didn't require further attention to any aftereffect the blast might have had on his own person. 

With a muttered reassurance to Ray that he'd be back in a few minutes, Winston left for the parking lot. Guiding Ray to one of the seats, Egon sat down beside him and suggested, "Why don't you tell me what they said, and we'll let Peter go vent his ire on some unsuspecting doctor before we're trapped in Ecto with him all the way home." 

A tiny smile lifted the corners of Ray's mouth as he nodded and settled back, into the curve of Egon's arm stretched out ever-so-incidentally along the back of the seat. 

Peter spared half a minute to admire the casual way Spengler had taken control of the situation and disposed of the troops without resorting to giving orders. Then he turned an adamant gaze on the nurse. "I'd like to see Dr. Mozia," he stated, and his tone brooked no refusal. 

Still unimpressed, the nurse merely shrugged and invited him to follow her to the doctor's office. 

* * *

"The problem, Dr. Venkman, is that we can't find any reason for him to be blind." Dr. Nelson Mozia turned out to be a dark-skinned man in his early thirties who radiated an air of utter competence, even while admitting he was baffled. "Flash burns would be understandable in this situation, but he seems to have been lucky enough to have been facing away from whatever it was that exploded at the moment it blew up. All the damage done by the explosion was to the back of his head. Medically, I can't find a reason for him not to be able to see. What's at fault may well be more in your province than mine." 

It was a pretty heavy-handed hint and Peter bristled. "Psychosomatic, you mean? He's imagining himself blind for some reason?" 

The doctor shrugged, conveying a delicate balance of appeal to more appropriate expertise and apology for implying he thought it was necessary. "Maybe. All I'm saying is that we can't find a physical cause. It's not detectable, and while we've gotten fairly good at this sort of thing that doesn't completely leave out the possibility there's something going on subtle enough we just haven't seen it yet. All the obvious possible causes have been checked and eliminated. His optic nerve wasn't detached by the explosion's force, and to all external observation his eyes are in perfect working order. The best suggestion I can make is that you take him home and if it doesn't clear up in three days, bring him back in and we'll run the battery of tests over again. Whatever is causing it may have shifted or grown so we can see it then." 

As angry as Peter had been and as ridiculous as he thought the idea of a purely psychological cause was, the palpable aura of sincere, knowledgeable compassion the doctor radiated had a deeply calming effect on him. Either that, or Peter's built-in political savvy was letting him know it wasn't smart to piss off the person who could do the most to help them. "Shouldn't he be admitted, at least overnight for observation?" he asked doubtfully. "If whatever is causing his blindness shifts or gets worse, couldn't he go from a temporary case to a permanent one before you figure out what the problem is?" 

Dr. Mozia shook his head. "I don't think so. He's not severely enough injured to require a hospital's level of care any longer, and being in familiar surroundings will make it a lot easier for him to cope with the blindness. I pointed out the possibility of a permanent change to him and he preferred going home to waiting here. Since we have no evidence a deterioration is likely occur without our care I have to agree with his choice. If we don't know what the trouble is, we can't treat him, and if we can't help, there's no reason to stay here. If the condition is permanent, the quicker he begins adjusting and learning his way around his own territory, the better. Even if it's a temporary condition the first few days he has to put up with it will be less traumatic if he isn't having to deal with completely strange surroundings at the same time." 

"And if it's all in his mind, maybe being in his own home with us will jar loose whatever's blocking his vision," Peter speculated. He still didn't buy the contention Ray was creating the blindness himself, there just wasn't any reason for Stantz to withdraw from anything in his life to that extent. Anything he knew of, anyway.... 

"It could happen." Mozia shrugged again. "I can't promise anything because I don't know what the problem is. At this point, I'm just hoping it goes away by itself." 

"That's modern medical science for you," Peter muttered under his breath. 

"I'm afraid it is, Dr. Venkman." Rising to shake Peter's hand, the doctor's tone was sympathetic without sarcasm. "Forgive me if I say I hope we do not see you again any time soon." 

This time Peter's smile was actually genuine. "Same here." 

* * *

The first twenty-four hours were, of course, the hardest. No matter how many years he had lived in the firehouse or how many dark nights he had navigated its maze of furniture without serious mishap, Ray still had a terrible time adjusting to getting around without any visual cues at all. Even on the darkest night with his eyes half-closed in sleep, there'd been some sense of shape and shadow to guide him. Without those unnoticed aides, he discovered his own home was a far more vast and confusing place than he had ever realized it could be. There wasn't much left of the afternoon and evening by the time they returned from the hospital, and that combined with the nervous exhaustion generated in the last few hours left them little time to explore the full nature and extent of Ray's disability before it was long past time to go to bed. 

When Ray awoke the next morning it took him a few seconds to figure out why, when his eyes were open, he still couldn't see anything. At first he wondered if it was still night, but as his other senses filtered into action he realized he could hear the normal morning sounds of someone in the shower and Peter's snoring. The smell of coffee and bacon wafting up from downstairs was slowly getting stronger, luring him into wakefulness as almost nothing else could. It was so pitch black he couldn't even see the outlines of the furniture in the bedroom.... _Oh yeah, I'm blind._ It was a fairly sobering realization to come to, first thing in the morning. 

"Good morning, Ray." Egon's deep voice announced his presence at the doorway. "How are you feeling?" There was a note of suppressed hopefulness in his tone, and it wasn't until then Ray felt his own disappointment his inexplicable sightlessness hadn't gone away overnight. 

"Pretty much the same," he said, trying to inject some cheerfulness into his own voice but only succeeding in sounding resigned. At least the headache had abated somewhat, although it wasn't entirely gone. 

"Oh." There was a world of unspoken disappointment in Egon's reply, then he became more brusque. "In that case I guess you'll have to start learning to cope with it, at least for now. Why don't you take a shower, then join me in the lab." 

"Easy for you to say," Ray muttered under his breath, but he was glad Egon hadn't offered to help him bathe. Some things he preferred to start learning to get done on his own as soon as possible. Gathering up clean clothes out of his dresser by feel, a smile twitched at his lips as he thought of the difficulty Peter would have in the same situation. All Venkman's clothes, clean and dirty, were strewn about the floor of his closet in what appeared to be a random fashion though he always claimed there was a system to it and, to his credit, he did seem to know which were which. Ray was willing to bet whatever system he used would not hold up under sudden blindness, however, and Peter would be reduced to sniffing his own collection of T-shirts every morning to determine which one to wear. Chuckling as he navigated toward the bedroom door, the sound of Peter's snoring acting like a sonic lighthouse, Ray decided there might be some things worse than blindness. 

Finding the bathroom wasn't that difficult and he was feeling pretty confident with his ability to get around normally until he dropped the soap and discovered just how frustrating not seeing could be. Worse yet, after having crouched down and searched the entire bathtub bottom by hand until he located the slippery bar, when he stood up again he had an attack of something that felt very much like vertigo. There were no reference points around him, none at all in the featureless blackness, and when he waved an arm seeking support all he found was the loosely hanging shower curtain. If he hadn't had the wit to sit down first, he would have fallen over, his sense of balance completely unhinged by the lack of visual cues to reinforce his equilibrium. 

Shaving presented a bit more of a challenge than he felt ready for, especially since he knew the blade in his razor was due for replacement. Neither fumbling with sharp blades nor scraping his face with a dull one sounded appealing, and he made a mental note to ask one of the guys to help him find that electric shaver Aunt Lois had given him one year for Christmas. Finally, damp, dressed, and only slightly scruffy-looking, he made his way back to the third floor lab and asked plaintively, "This won't take long, will it? I'm hungry." 

"Not at all. Hold out your hand," Egon instructed him. 

Mystified, he did so, and felt a long, thin, metal rod. Drawing it through his hands, he found it was about four feet long, lightweight, and tapered in several sections. "A cane-like object?" he guessed. 

"Precisely. I soldered a spare antenna solid at full extension. It should help you quite a bit in getting around," Egon said. At the somewhat unhappy look on Ray's face, he asked gently, "It's not very easy, is it?" 

"No, actually." Sliding the antenna/cane between his fingers, Stantz sighed dispiritedly. Yesterday had started out so beautifully, it had been such a perfect-seeming day, and now he had to wonder if he would ever look out the front door and admire the morning sunlight again. "It's a bit like getting a paper cut on the back side of your fourth finger," he held his up, touching the most innocuous and forgotten place on the hand, "and finding anything you do with your hands invariably involves that precise piece of skin. Or spraining a toe and discovering every single muscle in your entire body is directly connected to that one sore spot by everything you do. I never had any idea absolutely everything I did somehow relied on being able to judge distances and correct my reactions through feedback from my sight." He flexed the metal rod fiercely, stopping just short of putting a permanent bend in it. "I can't even take a shower without nearly killing myself falling over because I can't see to catch my balance. How am I going to do any kind of useful job around here?" 

A warm hand descended on his shoulder and Egon said reassuringly, "Remember, it may only be for a day or two, it could clear up on its own and go away the way corneal abrasions do for people who wear their contacts too long. There was no verdict of permanence from any of the doctors who examined you." His grip tightened briefly, as if he hoped he could convince Ray everything would be all right even though he wasn't sure himself, then he went on thoughtfully, "Of course, if your sight doesn't return soon I will have to consider designing an implant and visor for you." 

"Like Geordi's?" Ray asked with sudden delight, quite willing to be distracted from his depression. Fully convinced Egon could create just such a device if he tried, Stantz' natural enthusiasm took over immediately. "Wow, that would be great! I could see infrared and ultraviolet, and you could even set them to receive the same wavelengths as our ectoscopes, couldn't you?" 

"Easily. I will have to spend some time considering the internal toggles to control the waveband you would receive at any single time in order to avoid too much input causing confusion, but it's certainly possible. Hmmmm...." His touch left Ray's shoulder and his footsteps receded across the lab to his desk, occasional mutterings indicating what had been a joke was already transforming into the challenge of experimental design and research requirements. 

Cheered by the idea, Ray turned and headed for the door, doing quite well with the jury-rigged cane until he reached the hallway and ran smack into a cold, squishy object at chest height. Backing away spitting slime, he said irritably, "You'll have to get out of the way, Slimer, I can't see you to go around." 

"Wanna help Ray. Stairs here," he explained, grabbing Ray's free hand and pulling him forward a couple steps to place it on the rail. 

"Hey, you can be my seeing-eye-ghost!" Ray said happily. "This is even better than a cane, you can tell me what's going on around me and keep me from running into things. Right?" 

"Yeah! Yeah!" Slimer burbled, and when they reached the bottom of the spiral staircase he took Ray's hand again, leading him toward the kitchen. 

Trailing trustingly in the spud's wake, Ray's shin impacted painfully with the edge of the coffee table and he pitched forward onto the obstacle with a startled cry. The stacks of magazines on its top scattered in all directions and he ended up sitting on the floor next to the sofa, rubbing his shin and feeling very put-upon. 

"Sorry! Sorry! Oh, sorry!" Slimer whined, alternately beating his fists against his head and wringing his hands, a show entirely lost on its audience. 

"Are you OK?" Winston asked from the kitchen doorway. "That sounded like quite a fall." 

"Yeah, I'm mostly OK." Ray struggled back to his feet and accepted the metal cane from Winston. "I should have guessed Slimer wouldn't think to look out for things at ground level when he's floating above them. I think I'll stick with the cane instead of a seeing-eye-ghost for now after all." 

"A little less personally attentive but generally more reliable," Winston agreed. Swatting at Slimer with the damp dishtowel he was holding he scolded, "All right, we know you're sorry already. Give a man's ears a break in the morning, will you?" 

"It's OK, Slimer, I'm not mad at you," Ray reassured the distraught green blob. Slimer's wailing stopped instantaneously, a relief to both men. Limping slightly, Stantz allowed Zeddemore to lead him to his seat at the table. "I get the feeling nothing is going to be quite as easy as it looks on TV when this happens to one of the heroes." 

"Want me to feed you?" Winston asked with good-natured sympathy. 

"Hah. Hah," Ray said sourly, waving his right arm in slow circles over the table until he found the glass of orange juice waiting for him. "I think I'll be safe enough doing that myself." Which he was, though he also made quite a mess. 

* * *

By the third day, however, nothing had changed and they were forced to admit the situation might be more serious than temporary. They made an appointment and took him back to the hospital where Dr. Mozia oversaw the repetition of the previous series of tests, along with some new ones that were more expensive but equally useless. The answer was still the same: there was no detectable physical reason for Ray to be blind. There was no treatment the specialists could offer because they could find nothing that was not already perfectly normal, and the next appointment was set with much less optimism for a week in the future. When the theory of a psychosomatic cause was again broached, Peter could no longer muster sufficient righteous indignation to blow up, and the ride back to the firehouse was made in a silence less companionable than tense and depressed. 

Ray, Egon, and Winston were discouraged because they had expected to hear some news that would both make Ray's condition understandable and give them a definite duration of time to plan on dealing with it before a cure was effected. Peter was unhappy for the same reason, but added to that were the beginnings of a separate worry that he had missed something of vital importance, that Ray had needed his help for days and been given no attention whatsoever in the right area, and the fear Ray would need more extensive and specialized counseling than he was competent to give. The last he quashed mercilessly; he would do everything he could to help his friend before he'd admit defeat and invite any other professional in his own field to assist. And what if the time you spend in refusing to admit failure makes his condition worse, or untreatable? Ray was not the only one who slept poorly that night. 

Over the next three days, Ray's initial cheery acceptance wore out as it began to sink in that he might have to spend the rest of his life handicapped like this. Egon regretfully announced that until room—or in this case, body—temperature superconductors were developed the implant would not be feasible because the computer controls to run it would be too large to fit inside Ray's skull. The guys had rescheduled all of their appointments as far into the future as each case's severity and the ire of the client allowed, but with nothing being done which could be expected to result in improvement in Ray's condition it was becoming clear they would have to go on some of the calls without him just to keep the business active and the power bills paid. 

Peter put it off as long as he could, but after almost a week's time without a single bust undertaken or reason for the hiatus announced, rumors were starting to circulate that the company was no longer reliable or responsive. Several hastily assembled consortiums called inquiring whether the ghostbusters were planning on selling the franchise and technology patent rights at last. After reaming the callers for not considering maybe four guys in a hard line of work might want to take a week of vacation now and then, Peter reluctantly announced to Egon and Winston that they were going to have to start taking some work without Ray in the next few days. Unspoken was the assumption that sooner or later he would get better and they'd be back to normal, and nobody was eager to contradict that idea or suggest maybe alternative measures ought to be looked into soon. The jobs they did take on didn't go extremely well, serving mostly to discourage them from trying any of the really tough assignments waiting for them. Without ever admitting they didn't even want to think about it, all three were getting the horrible, sinking feeling that sooner or later they would have to face the reality that Ray might not ever be able to return to his former, fully active status. 

* * *

"Look out!" 

There was a note of near-panic in Winston's warning, an intonation they rarely heard from their courageous teammate, and Egon's head whipped around as he searched for the cause of the alarm. The move proved to be a mistake, as it brought the headache surging forward to consume all his awareness. Biting his tongue to distract himself from the overwhelming pain graying out his vision, Egon squinted around the warren of identical cubicles, cursing the idiot who had chosen the ugly, uniform off-beige color that made it so hard to distinguish distances. Winston's shout had come from somewhere either around the corner to his left, or from the enclosed area behind him which had been prominently labeled "Mushroom Land" by some dissatisfied worker. 

Even able to see over the tops of the cubicle walls, he was unable to spot either of his companions. Originally designed as a warehouse, the building was poorly suited for the office use it had been converted to and the area the ghostbusters were working in was a maze of odd-shaped rooms they should never have allowed themselves to split up to cover. "Winston?" he called, his own voice sounding a bit stressed. 

The sizzling sound of firing proton rifles abruptly filled the air but, bounced around by the concrete walls, there was no way to judge how far away it was coming from, much less the precise direction. Egon suspected he might have been able to make a better guess had his whole head not been ringing with its own internal noise. Despite his efforts to overcome it, the pain was steadily growing worse and rapidly becoming intense enough to make him woozy. With a groan he sank back just far enough to rest the weight of his pack on the desktop in the small cubicle. Sound and movement were acutely painful to him when the headaches hit. They had been ambushing him without warning once or twice a day since the accident, lasting anywhere from a few minutes to nearly an hour. There was no history of migraine in his family and the usual visual distortions and hallucinations that accompanied a true migraine were not present, so he attributed the headaches to stress and possibly some lingering aftereffect of the explosion which should abate with time. 

"Peter!" This time Winston's voice was closer, and the fear in it had been replaced entirely by anger. 

"What?" Venkman's approaching voice yelled back, much louder than ordinary conversation should have required. 

"What the hell was that supposed to be? You trying to get us both killed?" Rising in volume to match Peter, Winston was almost shouting. 

Standing again, Egon braced himself with one hand on the chair back for a second as he again scanned the space around him. This time he could see his companions, or at least the tops of their heads, approaching as their argument escalated. Suppressing a sigh, Spengler massaged his temple with one hand for a moment before stepping out into the passageway to join them. 

In the lead, striding rapidly as if he knew where he was going, Peter slowed as he saw Egon coming out of the cubicle. "And where were you this whole time?" he demanded, eyes narrowing unpleasantly. "Searching the desk drawers for snacks?" 

"Stop trying to change the subject!" Zeddemore said, catching up with Peter and laying a hand on his shoulder as if to pull the psychologist around to face him. 

Shrugging out from under the touch as if it burned him, Venkman swung around, backing up a step at the same time. "What is your problem?" he yelled. "I got them, didn't I?" 

"No, you got one. I got the other before it brained you with that printer," Winston said, the tightness of his lips indicating how difficult it was for him to maintain what little calm he had left. 

"So? That's teamwork," Peter said dismissively. 

"No! That's plain stupid!" Losing his temper completely, Winston surged forward and grabbed Peter by the straps of his pack, shaking him. "If you hadn't broke cover and gone blasting after the first spook we could have had them both pinned in a crossfire without taking a risk like that! There was no excuse for it, none at all!" He shook Peter one last time and let go, stepping back with an angry gesture as if throwing the man he'd held away. "You almost got yourself killed for no reason and this isn't the first time you've pulled some idiot suicide stunt in the middle of a bust this week. If you can't concentrate on how we're supposed to work together instead of taking out whatever your feelings are on the job, I'm not going out on any more calls with you. It's too goddamned dangerous." 

Finding himself nodding fractionally in agreement, Egon returned Peter's hot glare with unheated assurance. "He's right. You have been outrageously precipitous in your approach several times in the past two days, showing a tendency to endanger yourself and occasionally others with your disregard for normal procedure." His motionless calm was as much a result of the splitting headache as it was his confidence in being right, but there was no point in telling the others that now. Considering the other difficulties they were having, he didn't feel it was necessary to make a big deal out of what was most likely a temporary condition and was certainly not the most pressing of their problems. Normally he spent the times when the headaches came hiding in his third floor lab with the lights out, chugging aspirin and silently enduring the pain until it passed. This was the first time he'd had an attack during a bust and the experience convinced him he couldn't expect to work as usual until he stopped having these spells. With his reactions slowed and distorted to a point nearly equivalent to paralysis, he was as much of a danger to the group as Peter was with his wild, unreasoned attacks. 

"When I want your opinion, I'll read your entrails," Venkman snarled. "My method works as well as any other and you both know it. We would never have gotten that gooper at Dairy Queen yesterday if we'd sat around on our butts and followed some stinking procedure. Taking a few risks to get the job done is what this business is all about." 

"No, Peter," Egon said very firmly. "Capturing and containing ectoplasmic entities with as little risk to ourselves and the public as possible is what this business is all about. If we no longer agree on that basic premise, I will have to side with Winston in refusing to take on any more assignments. I most certainly would not care to face a class seven meta-specter with a partner who feels the way you appear to right now." 

"Amen to that one," Winston muttered. 

"Fine!" Glaring from one to the other, his breathing harsh and uneven, Peter looked like an animal backed into a corner from which he would lash out at anyone. "If that's the way you two feel, we might as well just close down now, because I sure as hell wouldn't want to face a class seven with partners I couldn't trust to back me up when I needed it." Spinning away from them, he resumed his rapid pace toward the exit, almost running. 

Watching him go, Zeddemore shook his head in perplexed disgust. "That's not what we meant and he should know it. What's wrong with him?" 

Moving slowly, Egon began to follow the direction Peter had taken. "I suspect he's displacing some of his frustrations about Ray's condition. We will have to remain firm in our resolve not to take any more jobs until he is able to deal with his anger through some other mechanism, or else risk the high probability of an unfortunate accident precipitated by his behavior." 

"Yeah." Zeddemore sighed and tromped along next to him. "You should have seen him today. Man, it was close for a second or two there. Sure wouldn't want too many repeats of that sort of incident." Remembering the physicist had been missing during the main part of the excitement, he asked with some interest, "Were there any good snacks in the desk?" 

"I have no idea," Egon replied stiffly, and could not be drawn back in to conversation the rest of the way home. 

* * *

"I'm bored!" Ray shouted. Startled, Slimer shot upward and spun in a circle, looking frantically for what had alarmed Ray so suddenly. Finding nothing in the TV room but what had been there moments before, he settled back down, casting an uneasy look at the unpredictable engineer. 

Unaware of the effect he was having on his companion, Ray continued to sulk. "Bored, bored, BORED!" he muttered to himself. There simply wasn't that much to occupy his time with; daytime television was mind-numbingly moronic enough when it could be seen and worse still when he could only listen to it, and his several attempts at learning Braille had led him to unprecedented levels of frustration. Slimer was a lousy conversationalist and not much help in anything else, and handicapped as he was there weren't many things left Ray could try teaching the spud. Janine had tried reading to him, but the stuff she could read smoothly bored him and the technical journals and books that might have challenged his mind enough to keep him interested were too difficult for her to read since she didn't know the names for half the mathematical symbols nor could she describe the graphs and drawings with sufficient technical clarity to make them comprehensible. Egon could have, but Ray hated to bother him with a task that would essentially waste the physicist's time, and Peter's attention span for dry science wasn't long enough even if he could have been induced to admit he could pronounce the words and describe the accompanying graphics with sufficient accuracy. "Oh, god, I'm so bored," he moaned, more to hear the sound of his voice than in actual hopes of anyone coming to entertain him. 

"Did I hear someone say they wanted to talk?" Peter asked from the kitchen doorway. Although he'd come up from his office only intending to make a sandwich, the outburst of ennui he had just heard sounded like a good opportunity to try another session with his number one patient. 

Ray's pout turned abruptly into a defensive hunch. "I'm not that bored," he said in a much more subdued manner. "Besides," he continued, his tone simmering on the edge of resentment, "all you want to talk about is why I'm imagining I should be blind." 

Venkman grimaced to himself. It didn't matter how delicately he put the questions, Ray was no dummy and had figured out pretty quickly where the conversations were headed. The odd part was he had reacted badly to the daily attempts the psychologist made to talk to him instead of participating enthusiastically in a possible avenue to a cure. "I'm only trying to help you," Peter said, but instead of the gentle reminder he had intended, his own edginess manifested in the words making them much sharper than he realized until he heard them himself. Knowing his control was slipping so badly only made him more tense and determined. 

"So what's it going to be this time, more insinuations about my wanting to shut out reality by refusing to see it?" Stantz demanded, matching Peter's cut with his own. 

"It's not that simple." Sitting down next to Ray, he tried his most persuasive tone. "You know as well as I do the doctors haven't found any discernible physical reason for you not to be able to see. That seems to leave us with just one option, and I don't understand why you're so reluctant to cooperate." 

"Because if you think it's all in my head, everyone will stop looking for the real reason!" Ray burst out. "I know I'm not crazy! I know they haven't found the reason yet but that doesn't mean it isn't there somewhere! Why do you think I'm making this all up? Don't you trust me to know what's real and what isn't?" 

"Psychosomatic disorders don't work that way," he tried explaining patiently. "Even if you knew that was what was wrong, you wouldn't be able to overcome it until you had discovered and confronted the root cause of the trauma." 

"There is no root cause, okay? The sequencer blew up and it hurt me and that's all there is to it! If you can't accept that, then just leave me alone. I don't want to play head games about it." On the verge of frustrated tears, Ray surged to his feet, groped for his cane, and headed for the stairs leading upward. 

Watching him go, Peter struggled to understand both how he had so quickly lost command of what should have been such a simple interaction, and how he had managed to fail to figure out how Ray would naturally have reacted to everything that had happened to him. What was worse, Ray was right. Since the last hospital visit had not found any definite cause, they had quit thinking of looking for a physical reason. No more specialists had been called and it was everyone's unspoken assumption the cure for the problem lay in Peter's domain. No wonder Ray felt threatened and hopeless, he wouldn't have missed the way his friends were probing his feelings and looking for some reaction that would tell them why he was doing this to himself. _How the hell did you ever get a degree in psychology, you idiot? Now how are you going to help him when you've completely alienated him and he refuses to accept the possibility you can do anything for him, hmm? Moron._ Thoroughly disgusted with himself, Peter stomped back down to his office without remembering to stop in the kitchen and grab the sandwich. 

Things might have gone on indefinitely getting worse at Ghostbuster Central, but they finally got a break on the tenth day after the explosion. 

* * *

"Lunch time, Egon. Come on downstairs." 

Winston's voice at the door to the lab was pitched normally but Egon winced anyway, barely recovered from the most recent headache. Either they were getting worse or he was slowly losing his ability to withstand the pain. "Sounds good," he replied, irritated to hear his own voice come out in a hoarse near-croak. 

Looking at the physicist closely, Winston noted the pallor of his skin. "You feeling all right, m'man?" he inquired, suddenly uncomfortably aware he had seen Egon looking a bit under the weather a number of times lately. Nobody had bothered to ask after his health when Ray's problem loomed so much larger on their collective horizon, and Winston felt a stab of guilt for ignoring one friend's problem to focus on that of another. 

Egon shrugged lightly. "Headache," he answered briefly and his tone, while far from cold, nevertheless didn't invite further solicitousness either. Taking a deep breath, he concentrated on steadying himself before he rose from the chair and managed a fairly normal stride across the room. 

"Have you noticed Ray's mood lately?" Winston asked, more for the sake of conversation than real curiosity. 

Grateful for a diversion, Egon nodded as he passed Winston at the door and headed for the spiral stairs. "Yes, I had, and I'm worried about his increasingly upset state of boredom. It may even prevent a recovery if his emotional attitude deteriorates much further." Egon felt the returning headache piercing sharp and hard through his temples before he noticed anything else. Eyes closed in automatic reaction, he paused, wincing and reaching one hand to his head. It wasn't until he squinted outward, trying to see the stairs well enough to get off them and out of Winston's way, that he knew he was as blind as Ray. The shock of the solid wall of black combined with his unsteady balance, and in trying to reach the next step he missed his footing and tumbled down the remaining four steps to the second floor. 

"Egon!" A chorus of worried voices converged on him and he blinked upward, able to see perfectly but for the skewed lenses on his face tilting his perspective a few degrees off center. 

Standing over him, hands on his hips and a bemused expression on his face, was Winston. "Man, you are getting clumsy in your old age," he declared, then reached one hand down to help him up. 

"I am hardly old." Disdaining the assistance, Egon climbed to his feet on his own, his mind working at high speed which gave him a distracted air the others attributed to his fall. Once vertical, he adjusted the cant of his glasses and brushed himself down, wincing at the bruised spots that spoke up but paying less attention to that than to the new line of theory he had found. 

"Are you all right?" Ray's concerned voice brought his attention back up. Leaning on the door frame for reference, the engineer looked blindly toward the confusion. 

"Yes, fine," Egon hastened to reassure him. "Nothing permanently damaged, at any rate." Moving stiffly as he discovered new sore spots with every action, he said, "Ray, I have a theory I'd like to test and I'm going to need you to help me." 

"I wouldn't trust him," Peter teased from the kitchen. He'd come at a dead run when he heard the fall, but once satisfied Egon had come to no harm he was prepared to razz the usually graceful physicist unmercifully about it. "A guy who can't walk on his own shouldn't be offering to experiment on his friends with high voltage equipment." It was precisely the thing he would have said under any other circumstances but there was a harder edge to the comment this time, as if the sarcasm was only half in jest. 

"I hear that one," Winston agreed, though a slight crease of puzzlement still ran between his brows. Egon wasn't a clumsy man who commonly fell for no reason and he'd seen the physicist falter on the steps as if overcome by something suddenly painful. If Egon didn't want to explain he wasn't going to force the issue, especially not while Peter was so unsympathetically contentious. "You be careful, Ray, don't let him convince you the window is the door." Having heard the nasty undercurrent in Peter's voice, Winston was trying very hard to keep the by-play as normal and innocent as possible. Sooner or later Peter's ill-tempered snapping was going to goad Egon into an equally unkind reply and that first fight, Zeddemore instinctively felt, would signal the beginning of the end for the partnership already endangered by Ray's injury. 

Egon sighed in long-suffering patience, his own method of keeping the tension manageable. "If you two are quite through making a production number out of a minor accident, I'd like to get back to work." 

"Too bad every time you go to work we have another 'minor' accident," Peter muttered, but he had already retreated back into the kitchen and Egon chose to ignore the remark. 

Glad of nearly any diversion that didn't include being trapped in an interview with the irritable psychologist, Ray trailed his fingers along the wall until he could reach out for the stair railing and start upward. With a final glare backward at the spot Peter had occupied, Egon followed him up to the lab. "Just sit down over by the main bench," he directed, knowing Ray appreciated the confidence in his ability to do everyday things without being smothered in assistance. "I'm going to take a few PKE readings and then possibly run one or two other tests I'll need your presence for." 

"Whatever," Ray said agreeably, finding the extra chair and settling into it. "What is it you're looking for?" 

Already recalibrating a meter, Egon was mentally filling out the lines of his new theory and the implications it might have for Ray's recovery. He could have answered the question easily enough, but as usual he preferred not to speculate out loud until he was certain he had reached the final, correct answer. "In a minute," he hedged, and ran the meter over Ray from head to foot. Its lights flashed and the screen wavered with simultaneous readings from two separate sources of differing strength but identical ectoplasmic properties. 

"Sunny beaches," Egon murmured to himself. It was such a simple and obvious reading to have taken, considering the nature of the explosion that had occurred, and the very idea had completely slipped by him until now. Chalking up a day or so of confusion to the emotional stress Ray's blindness had put them all through was one thing—being totally clueless for over a week was something else entirely. Egon didn't want to explore the implications too closely, it would have been a waste of time better spent on trying to recover the lost time now that he was finally on the right track. Moving a few feet away, he turned the meter on himself and watched the pattern of readings reform, still showing the two similar energy signatures. With the distance between them increased, it was clearer the larger of the two sources was Ray. 

"What? What?!" Ray asked, beginning to bounce with impatience. He could hear the fact of Egon's discovery in his shifted rate of breathing and the tone of voice of his one short exclamation but had no way to look over his shoulder and deduce the nature of it for himself. 

"Both of us are registering as sources of powerful residual PK energy, spectrally very similar to the Vigan slime we were working with at the time of the explosion," he said. "Your readings are higher, by two orders of magnitude. The reason I fell on the stairs was that my sight failed for a few seconds." 

"You think the cause of my blindness is ectoplasmic instead of physical, and we're both affected but to different degrees because the extent of blindness is based on how close we were to the source when the sequencer exploded," Ray deduced from the offered facts. 

"Exactly," Egon replied. Internally, he made a mental note to speak aside to Venkman as soon as possible, for he had not missed the signs of stress growing more pronounced each day in Peter's eyes nor had it been hard to surmise the cause. Now that they had the real answer, Peter's mood should lighten accordingly and that would make life for all of them a bit easier. Adjusting the sensor on the meter to scan a narrower area, he repeated his scan of Ray, moving slowly and retracing several passes. "According to these readings, you have an accumulation of Vigan slime centered behind and slightly above your sinus cavities. I believe it's actually occupying your optic nerve and is entirely responsible for your blindness." 

"Then it should be curable!" It took Ray very little time to come to the same conclusion Egon had just reached. "The doctors were right, there's nothing wrong with my eyes and once the slime is removed I'll be able to see again." 

"Yes. I can design a trap-like mechanism that should be able to draw it off from outside. A normal trap doesn't have sufficient suction to draw out so small an amount, and I also detect some actual chemical bonding with your tissue, probably a change induced by the experiments we had performed on it prior to the explosion. That would tend to explain how it infiltrated your system so completely, and we're not entirely without precedent in that area." They'd all been victim to physical/chemical/ectoplasmic contamination and its effects several times before, both through deliberate poisoning and immersion in mixed solutions. But those times the symptoms had been so outré and directly attributable to a recent ectoplasmic encounter that it hadn't been hard to figure out what was going on. This time the symptom of Ray's blindness had been so close to what could have been expected to result from a non-etheric blast it had taken him far too long to make the connection and arrive at the true cause. Egon didn't voice his fear that the delay in diagnosis might have an adverse effect on the odds for complete recovery. "I don't think it's a complicated or invasive enough chemical bond that it can't be broken by mere trap pull, despite the different properties it seems to have gained from that brief exposure to the beam." 

Changing the intensity with which their traps drew on ectoplasm was a simple enough procedure. He'd spent some time a year or two ago working on improving the suction but given it up as pointless in view of the fact the traps worked fine as they were and pushing the draw higher had resulted in the equipment swallowing itself rather than the nearest nether entity. What they needed now, however, was not so much to increase the trap's draw as to tune it with precision to the exact frequency of the slime they wished to extract. Egon set to work and quickly found it was a much more complicated and dangerous theory than it had appeared at first. If the trap suction was powerful enough to yank the chemically bonded ectoplasm from inside a living body, it also was strong enough to damage other chemical bonds, disrupt other electrochemical reactions necessary for survival, and even rip apart cell walls. Testing on leftover pot roast injected with ectoplasm donated by Slimer demonstrated that tissue damage was highly likely even when the nature of the slime was known to the nth degree. When the target of the extraction beam was to be Ray's optic nerve and the slime's bonding properties were only measurable to an accuracy of +/- 15%, the result of an attempted cure by this method was virtually certain to be permanent physical blindness and/or damage to the surrounding brain tissue. 

Extensive diddling with the modified trap brought them closer to an effective level of suction, but when they advanced the experimentation to use of fresh, uncooked organ meats (sending Winston out repeatedly to visit all the local grocery stores and delis in a quest for material to work on) they found the risk of unacceptable damage was still better than 50%. After three long days of single-minded work Egon was beginning to feel like he had only discovered one more dead end, not a way out. 

"Don't worry," Ray said encouragingly. Despite the setbacks in their experiments so far, there was more optimism in his voice than there had been any time last week. "We'll get it eventually." With something to do and a definite hope of cure, his boredom and depression had lifted significantly and he was again treating his condition as a temporary adventure. He'd gotten quite good at solo navigation and his improved mood had lightened the tensions around the firehouse considerably, both of its own accord and in the effect Ray's new diagnosis had on Peter's outlook. Relieved of the worry that Ray's problem was something he could have affected or cured with a purely psychological approach, Peter was anxious for the real cure to be completed but far easier to be around. 

Egon sighed in frustration as he looked up from the microscope. "The tissue damage levels are still unacceptable," he said, lifting his glasses and rubbing at his eyes. "We've already lowered the electro-etheric attraction to the point where a full cure is becoming problematical—any lower and even if the damage abates the cure will be ineffectual." His own blind periods had been coming more frequently over the last two days and he knew the ectoplasm contaminating his system was reaching a critical level in the optic nerve. Once it was high enough that his sight was completely gone he would not be able to help Ray or himself. While he'd assured Peter he knew what was wrong with Ray and how to cure it, he somehow hadn't mentioned the fact he was also currently at risk. There was no reason to hide the information and he wasn't even sure why he hadn't mentioned it, though he suspected if he really examined his feelings he'd find the thought of recreating Peter's ill-temper was the major reason for his reticence to mention another problem. 

Ray shook his head stubbornly. "There's an effective medium," he insisted. It was clear from his tone that he was making the assertion more out of determined hope than knowledgeable certainty. In his particular world view solutions always existed, not because it followed the pattern of logical symmetry the universe seemed to have, but because it was right. 

Egon had far less faith in the inherent fairness of the universe, and knew that symmetry did not necessarily imply a right for every wrong. Settling his glasses back in place on the bridge of his nose, he barely repressed the urge to sweep the microscope off the bench in frustration. "I'm not getting any closer!" he growled, slamming one fist down on the table top. 

"Then leave it alone for a while," Ray suggested easily. As if he could sense the incredulous look turned on him, he shrugged. "I'm not going to get any more blind with time, and maybe not working so hard on it for a day or two will let a solution gel out of your subconscious." 

"The only thing liable to gel out of Egon's subconscious is slime mold." 

"Peter!" Ray turned toward the door Venkman had just entered by and tracked his progress across the room by the sound of his footsteps. "Egon's almost got the cure figured out. Isn't that great?" 

"Yeah, Ray, that's wonderful," Peter agreed. "So when do you get the treatment and get back out on the streets with us?" 

"Not soon, I'm afraid," Egon interjected. "Right now the process has a roughly equal chance of curing the problem or blinding him permanently. I would hesitate to venture an estimate of the date he'll be returned to normal." 

"Hey, I didn't ask you to make him normal," Peter protested. "I mean, cures are one thing, but a miracle...." The well-aimed slab of slime-impregnated, raw steak caught him across the face and he spluttered, "Ray, if your aim is that good you don't need to wait for a cure to help out on the next bust." 

"But I can only aim at things that give me a good target by staying in one place and making constant noise," Ray explained ingenuously. 

"Gentlemen," Egon said with the wearily patient tone of someone looking after two obnoxious children, "If you wish to hold a food fight, may I suggest you do so in a less hazardous environment?" 

Hefting the steak, Peter toyed with the temptation to lob it back at the defenseless Stantz, then grimaced instead and dropped the meat into the dish it had come from. "Nah, we had a food fight just last month." He did yield to the urge to wipe his hands off on Ray's uniform, ignoring the resultant squawk of outrage and ducking Ray's attempt to fend him off. 

His flailing arm missing any target, Ray overbalanced on the stool and with an inarticulate cry he toppled sideways, waving his arms even more frantically. Grabbing for him, Peter suffered one wild blow to the side of his head before he had a firm grasp on Ray and the younger man had stopped struggling and regained his seated position. 

"Gentlemen...." Egon protested a second time, his pronunciation of the word tinged with more than a little sarcasm. 

Peter dusted Ray off ostentatiously, this time letting the light, irritated swat Ray waved at him land before he gave up and moved away closer to Egon. Peering over the physicist's shoulder at the prepared sections of experimental material on the bench, he sniffed delicately at the slightly gamy odor wafting upward. "Some hors d'oeuvres. Is the Brain Squad at least making progress? Considering what our grocery bill has been since you started working on this idea, you'd better be close to the answer. You're making Slimer look cheap to feed. When's the big day?" 

Casting a telling glance at Ray, Egon said in a subdued tone, "I don't know." 

If he noticed or was disturbed by Egon's pessimistic tone, Ray didn't let it show. "Soon, Peter, I know it. A couple more days and we'll have the last bugs worked out of the process and everything will be OK again." 

Depressed at the contradictory truth he had seen in Egon's eyes, Peter barely managed to sound sincere in his congratulations. They had been through such a roller coaster of disaster and hope over the last two weeks he refused to look on the bright side for the simple knowledge that if things could get worse, they would. Not only that, at the core of each disappointment he'd be sure to find Egon, leading the way to new scientific frontiers of awfulness. Finally turning a demanding look that more than qualified as a glare at Spengler, he said, "Well, I for one can't wait for everything to get back to the way it was before you had your little accident." Only half-listening to Ray's assurances, he maintained his glower at Egon before abruptly spinning away and leaving the lab. 

Watching him go, a crease formed between Egon's brows. It was most likely Peter's mood had turned unpleasant because there still had been no sure and certain good news forthcoming. Egon sighed silently to himself, then blinked and held still until his own sight returned, accompanied by the pounding pain in his head. He could hardly be expected to make up a feel-good response when the true state of affairs was obvious to anyone who cared to look over the research notes. It was unfair of Peter to be angry at not getting such an answer and he could not help wishing Peter would direct his frustration at some other target. Being on the receiving end of unpredictable ire was both irritating and draining, and he had enough to worry about at the moment. Like the projected curve he had calculated based on the increasing frequency and duration of his own blind spells. If the accumulation of slime followed a simple linear progression, he had just about three days before his own sight would be permanently gone. 

* * *

"You used to read faster than that, Egon. Slowing down in your old age?" Peter's teasing voice sounded close by, maybe a foot or two to the right, but Egon didn't look up. If he had, it would have been plain he could not see from his inability to focus precisely. Although Winston had dragged Ray down to the ground floor to help clean Ecto, Egon knew he still should have taken the book back up to the lab where he would have stood less chance of interruption than here in the more comfortable TV room. Especially since his blind spells were frequent enough he'd known for certain there would be at least one within the time it was going to take to go through the book he needed to consult. 

"This is difficult material," he said instead, pretending to concentrate fiercely on the page he held the book open to. When his sight had blipped out this time, he had been in the middle of a page of integral equations he knew were not complex but which looked intimidating enough to bluff someone as calculus-challenged as Peter. 

"No more difficult than I've been, I suspect." 

Glancing upward in surprise, Egon cursed the lack of vision that kept him from being able to read the expression in Peter's eyes. The quiet declaration had sounded completely sincere and he wanted very much to verify his impression. Quickly turning his useless gaze back toward the book in his lap, he shrugged casually. "I hadn't really noticed." 

"Bullshit," snorted Peter, then his tone softened again, this time carrying a hint of hurt puzzlement. "Why didn't you tell me?" 

"Tell you what?" Egon hedged, even as his grip on the book tightened. _Why didn't I go up to the lab to read?_ Confrontations with Peter were never fun; handicapped as he was now it would be a nightmare. _How could I have thought he wouldn't find out?_

"I asked Ray why you spent so much time locked away up there and he told me you're going blind too," Venkman stated bluntly. "I stood in the doorway before I came in and turned the lights on and off several times. You never even noticed." 

Letting his breath hiss out between his teeth, Egon nodded slowly. _Why does it matter if he knows?_ There was no point in further denial, if indeed there had ever been any point to it at all. "It didn't happen right away," he admitted. "My problem was never as critical as Ray's, and your mood hardly invited confidences, especially any having to do with further complications." 

"That's my fault, and I'm sorry," Peter said with sudden gentleness. "It's always so much easier for me to get mad than to admit something scares the crap out of me." Laying a hand on the thin shoulder, he leaned forward and down to peer into those clear, deep eyes. Even as he watched, Egon's vision cleared and sharpened, focusing on him as it returned. "If I could completely miss something like this, I must have been more out of it than any of you were willing to point out. I'm afraid I haven't been a very good friend lately." 

Looking up into Peter's face, Egon could see nothing but concern and honest regret. Somehow he hadn't really expected to see anything else, and realized at last that he had been allowing Peter to be angry with him because he knew that was how Peter chose to cope with stress. Feeling ashamed of his suspicion only moments ago, he replied with equal kindness, "No worse than any of us. I should have told you." 

"How out of it I was, or about this little detail?" A rueful smile quirked at his lips and he held up his hand to forestall any answer. "Don't tell me, I'm not sure I want to know. It should have been equally easy to tell me either." Lifting the book out of Egon's hands, he dropped it to the floor and crossed his arms, one hip balanced against the arm of the chair the physicist was occupying. "What I really want to know now is why this is happening to you." 

With a slight tip of his head Egon acknowledged his own portion of responsibility for the breakdown in communications, then explained, "It's the same thing that happened to Ray, only the process is slower. I was on the other side of the lab when the sequencer blew, he was right next to it and the dose of slime that entered his system was sufficient to block his sight immediately. I received a much lower level of contamination, enough to produce the same effect, but only after it's had time to migrate through my body and concentrate in the optic nerve. As it does, I've been experiencing brief periods of blindness as the signals from my eyes are interrupted. When the concentration gets high enough, I won't recover." 

"Ever?" There was a lost, almost frightened quality to Peter's question, as if it were his own sight being lost instead of his friend's. 

Responding to the tone, Egon shook his head and said quietly, "It does not seem probable the condition will reverse on its own." 

Peter swallowed and asked a bit more normally, "How long do you have?" 

"No more than three days, if my calculation of the accumulation rate is correct." Meeting Venkman's gaze levelly, he added, "I owe you an apology for the other day, Peter." In response to the quizzically raised eyebrows, he clarified, "When Winston and I refused to go on any more calls because of the way you'd been acting. It's true your reckless attitude was dangerous, but an even greater part of my reluctance to go on any more jobs after that last was the headaches I've been experiencing. They made me as much if not more of a hazard to the team effort than your unpredictable...enthusiasm. It was wrong of me to place all the blame on you and not admit my own inability to work safely." 

Peter was shaking his head fondly. "Nice try, Spengs, but it doesn't matter whether you were incapacitated or not. You and Winston were perfectly right about the way I was attacking things. I'm damn glad you put a stop to it when you did, or somebody could have gotten hurt and then I wouldn't have had anyone to blame but myself." 

"Frightening prospect," Egon murmured with a small smile. 

"Yes, actually," Peter agreed with rare candor, but the sly glint returned to his eyes immediately. "Still, it's nice to hear you admit you're not perfect every now and then. I'll definitely remember your penchant for subterfuge next time you tell me I'm a menace to the world at large." 

"I wouldn't count on it being any help at all," he said serenely, bending forward to retrieve his book. "Every time we've told you that, you were a genuine menace." 

* * *

That was it, then. Egon shut off the microscope light and leaned back, wearily rubbing at his eyes before replacing his glasses on his nose. Two additional days of testing had only confirmed what he had feared; there was no way to limit the risk of the cure and still have a chance it would work. By careful tuning based on using the last of their available sample he had been able to achieve a tissue damage level that equated to approximately 28% risk of permanent blindness through destruction of the optic nerve as the slime was ripped free. It was far from satisfactory, but it was the best he was going to be able to do in the time he had. 

Time was the limiting factor. Already his vision was blacking out roughly half the time, making progress painfully slow. It was past midnight and he had done less than would have been necessary to have a hope of getting close to a better answer in time. Tomorrow he would have only a few hours of sight, and the day after he would be unable to do anything more to help either Ray or himself. 28% wasn't a risk he was prepared to ask Ray to take, but it was as good as it was going to get and the only thing left was to test his theory on a contaminated, living subject. 

If it failed...at least Ray would be no worse off than he already was, and there might still be hope a better option could eventually be found. It was a small hope. Egon had attempted to calculate the odds but the number he had come up with was vanishingly small when his own ability to work on the problem was removed from the equation. As he set up the experimental equipment and programmed the timer to power up the suction for a limited period, he blocked the thought of failure from his mind. Consciously refusing to accept the probability he would never see again was the only way he could go through with the test run. He didn't hear the lab door swing open and wasn't aware anyone else was even awake until Peter spoke. 

"Egon...." Peter's voice was low, dangerous. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" It was clear from his tone he already had a good idea what the answer would be. 

Straightening with a sigh, Egon replied impatiently, "I should think that's pretty obvious, Dr. Venkman." Almost grateful for the interruption, he quashed his feelings of fear and turned to face Peter. 

"Only if I believe you're crazy enough to start experimenting on yourself." Moving closer, Peter eyed the contraption on the bench with disfavor. "As I recall, yesterday you said this thing had an equal chance of curing or permanently blinding Ray. Why the hell are you about to try it on yourself? Are you trying to blind yourself permanently too?" 

"No," he said quietly, "but if this does not work, in less than twenty-four hours I will be as blind as Ray. Permanently. Nothing the doctors can do will change that for either of us, Peter, and I would rather take this chance now than sit still and do nothing and let both of us become useless cripples for the rest of our lives." 

"Hold it right there. 'Blind' and 'useless cripple' are a long way from synonymous." It was a revoltingly politically correct statement, but it was accurate. 

"They are in high energy physics research. In ancient languages. And definitely in ghost busting." 

Peter had to admit that was true. Egon blind would be as horribly limited as Ray. Sure, he could still do math in his head at a level that would leave most professionals baffled, and he'd probably even adapt well enough to his condition, learning to get around and designing helpful devices to make life easier. But he wouldn't be able to do the things he loved the most or follow the pursuit of knowledge in the fields he had claimed and made his own special territory. He would always be barred from the life he had chosen and enjoyed. Searching for some way to break the deadlock of logic, Venkman asked, "But there has to be some other way! If you work on it a bit longer, you've got to come up with something that won't be so risky. Admit it, big guy, you haven't explored every single possible solution yet, you haven't had the time." 

That was the truth, and Egon had considered it earlier, then admitted to himself he was simply not patient enough to wait for another option. "True, but I have done as much as we can hope to see done for quite some time. At best it could be years before enough groundwork might be done and technical help trained to the level necessary to assist in further design efforts. I don't think Ray should have to wait if the solution is within our grasp now." There was more he wasn't saying, but it showed in the strain in his voice. Years of helplessness and removal from what he preferred to be doing that he was not willing to face, not when a good chance existed to avoid it all. The fact an even better chance existed to lose his sight permanently seemed more remote than the knowledge that if he did nothing, he was condemning himself to years of "temporary" blindness with no guarantee of a cure ever being found. 

"Ray isn't the question right now, you are," Peter pointed out. 

"Then I have made up my mind about what I want and, if it fails, Ray is still free to make up his own mind." Everything went black again and Egon carefully stretched one hand to the side until he found the stool he'd been sitting on, pulled it over, and sank down onto it. "This decision is not subject to a group vote of approval, it's purely personal. Isn't that how you'd prefer it if you were in my position?" 

"That may be, but the other thing I know is that if I were in your position, I wouldn't be able to make a rational decision about it. And for all your excuses I don't think you can either." 

"Is that so bad?" Egon asked in exasperation. "I'm not facing a rational choice here, Peter, I'm being forced to pick between two options which appear to have nearly equal chances of permanently ruining my life. Since there is no obvious advantage to either course of action, I'm doing what I want to." 

Knowing the physicist couldn't see him at the moment, Peter crossed the floor and put one hand on Egon's shoulder. "Then I guess the only choice you have is to do what you think is right," he said. "But I don't to have to like it." He tightened his grip momentarily. "What can I do to help?" 

"Keep me from running into the furniture until I can see again." There was a tiny tremble in his voice he refused to give in to. 

Letting go of his shoulder, Peter tapped him on the chin with his knuckles. "Count on me. However long it takes, Spengs." The tone of his voice made it clear he didn't care if it took twenty minutes or twenty years. 

Nearly a half hour later, Egon blinked and squinted against the brightness of the lab lights assaulting his returning vision. Without wasting any time, he returned to the modified trap apparatus and finished setting the parameters for the test run on himself. Peter watched in silence, an unreadable expression on his face. When everything was ready Egon hesitated for a moment, then his jaw firmed with resolution and he sat in front of the mechanism, reaching for the activation switch. As the brilliant white light bathed his face, Peter turned his head away, eyes closing as his brows gathered in helpless compassion. 

Seconds passed and abruptly the special trap closed, its cycle completed. Rising, Venkman moved over to stand next to Egon. He watched intently as Egon took several deep breaths, blinked hard, and picked up the PKE meter lying beside himself. One worry eliminated, Peter waited while the physicist took a series of readings over his own body. When the blue eyes turned up toward him, there was a smile dawning in their depths. 

"It worked," Egon announced with quiet happiness that didn't hide the relief he also felt. "There's no trace of the slime remaining in my system and my vision seems to be completely unimpaired." 

Peter let go a breath he hadn't realized he was still holding, feeling the tension begin to melt from his body. "Then let's go the hell to bed, it's been a long day and I need my beauty rest." 

"That is most certainly true," Egon agreed with a perfectly straight face, and was obliged to defend himself as a result. 

* * *

The next morning neither of them told Ray what had happened the night before, but before breakfast was done he had picked up enough clues from the conversation to figure it out on his own. Once Egon admitted to having tested the method on himself with success, Ray demanded to be next. 

"It's still too risky," Egon insisted for the fifth time. "There is no guarantee it would work again without inflicting permanent damage." 

"Did saying 'Don't do it, Ray, it's too dangerous' ever stop that boy?" Winston wondered aside to Peter. Venkman shook his head in the negative without taking his eyes off the two scientists. 

Arms folded across his chest, Ray was fixed in his desire to attempt the cure immediately. "You haven't spent two weeks running into the furniture and being bored out of your mind. If it worked so well on you, the calculations on tissue adhesion must be wrong. This isn't a random number generator that might pop out a cure one time and blindness the next, it's a simple technical procedure that either works or doesn't. You've just proven the theoretical risk analysis is too conservative." 

"That theoretical risk was based on solid observations," Egon replied, but his firm resolution was beginning to weaken. His tone shifted from unilateral certainty to near-pleading. "There's still a chance you would react differently to the trap." 

"A chance?" Ray snorted disdainfully. "If you recalculate the odds factoring in the results of your experiment last night, I think you'll find the chance of severe or permanent damage is so low even Peter wouldn't bet on it." 

"Hey, don't look at me," Peter protested, holding up his hands in surrender. "I send in every Publisher's Clearing House entry we get, so don't be saying I wouldn't believe in a long shot." 

"This is more than a long shot," Egon said, overriding Winston's muttered remark about having noticed the postage bill was awful high lately. "It's a highly hazardous procedure—" 

"Which you tried on yourself," Ray interjected. 

"He's got you there," Winston agreed. 

Peter stepped forward and quieted Egon's next objection with one hand on his shoulder. "Be fair, big guy. The odds for you were far worse and you chose to try it anyway. Credit Ray here with the same set of reasons and motivations you had, plus more experience of the alternative, and let him make his own decision. It's not a strictly rational one, remember?" 

Egon sighed gustily in defeat. "All right." As the others broke into grins and began to head toward the stairs leading upward he added, almost to himself, "But I don't like it." 

Urged on by Ray's excited confidence, the curative trap was soon set up and ready to go again. In order to make sure everything was done correctly Egon insisted on double-checking all the settings, eliciting a groan of exasperated anticipation from Ray. "Come on," the blind engineer pressed impatiently. "I want to see again. This isn't a complicated process." 

"It still has to be done right," Egon replied stiffly, but he had no further excuses to delay. Handing darkened lab goggles around, he warned Peter and Winston, "Stay back at least ten feet and don't look directly into the opened trap." 

"That doesn't apply to you, Ray," Peter pointed out helpfully, earning a smack on the arm from Winston for his effort. He subsided, muttering about never being appreciated, but the building tension in the room had been effectively broken. 

When Egon threw the switch the room was filled with brilliant backwash from the open trap for almost half a minute, then plunged back into the relative darkness of normal lighting. Blinking to clear the afterimages as they pulled off their goggles, Peter and Winston surged forward elbowing each other in the contest to reach Ray's side first. "Well?" they chorused in unison. 

Blinking as his eyes watered from the light, Ray looked from one face hovering over him to the other and smiled his brightest. "Winston! Peter, you look great!" 

"Right now I suspect even Slimer would look great to you," Peter groused, but he was grinning as widely as the other two nonetheless and he ruffled Ray's hair mercilessly. 

Egon was as relieved and happy as the others, the success of the procedure finally allaying his fears. After returning Ray's enthusiastic hug he picked up a PKE meter, aiming it at Stantz and adjusting the knobs. As he studied the readout, a small crease appeared between his blond brows. "Hmm." 

"'Hmm' what?" Peter turned on him and demanded. "He's fine now, isn't he?" 

"Well, yes, since he can plainly see again," Egon agreed. "However, there is a minuscule amount of the slime still left in his body. Not enough to interfere with his sight, but it is still detectably there." 

"So take it out," Winston suggested. "You got yourself clean, right? Why not him?" 

"I don't think that's such a great idea," Peter objected uncertainly. "If he's fine now, taking another chance at permanently injuring him is not really the way to go here." 

"Why didn't it all come out?" the object of the conversation asked. 

Egon took several more PKE readings before venturing a theory. "It appears the remaining concentration is far more chemically interactive than the bulk of it was and has bonded much more tightly to your tissues. Quite possibly it's a result of the higher pressure of injection you experienced from being closer to the source when the explosion occurred. Not only did you get exposed to a much larger concentration than I did, but at such close range some of it must have hit with sufficient force to effectively fuse to you." 

"Ewww." Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Peter surveyed Ray with phony, overt suspicion. "So now he's like become one with the slime?" 

Egon rolled his eyes and sighed through lightly clenched teeth. "If you must put it that way, yes. I don't think it will have any adverse effects, although it may tend to skew field readings if we don't compensate by recalibrating to eliminate the slight overlay present from Ray's body." 

"So then we do that." Venkman waved a hand cavalierly, dismissing the problem as unimportant in light of other matters needing more urgent attention. "But right now, we party!" 

* * *

The party had taken most of the night, and recovering from it, at least for Peter, most of the next day. Grouchy and complaining, he was dragged out of bed at what he loudly claimed was the crack of dawn that morning and cruelly forced to work despite his self-induced condition. With the backlog of more difficult cases built up during Ray's inactivity, exacerbated by the additional week when no jobs at all had been taken, the following week was extremely busy. Many of their clients, unhappy at being forced to live with their particular ectoplasmic pests for so long, were less effusively grateful than usual. 

"Look at this one!" Janine fumed, waving a small slip of paper at the four tired men dragging themselves toward the staircase from the Ecto's parking spot. 

Of the four, only Ray made the effort to summon enough energy to see what had infuriated her. Even his innate, unquenchable curiosity wasn't sufficient to give his step any bounce or his questioning gaze any more than a weary interest. "What is it?" he asked, halting in front of her desk and trying to track the waving paper in her hand well enough to see what it said. 

"It's a check, Ray," Peter answered, briefly halting his trudging progress up the stairs more because he needed the rest than just to needle his friend. "Recognizing them is an important part of being in business." 

"But look what they wrote on it." Janine pointed at the offending line with indignation. 

"It should say Ghostbusters, Inc. on the 'Pay to the order of' line," Venkman coached helpfully, leaning over the banister with slowly awakening interest in what insult had upset the secretary. Behind him, Egon and Winston waited on lower steps with the patience of total exhaustion. 

"It does, but on the memo line they—" She was interrupted by Ray's sudden moan of pain as he bent forward, one hand going to his head and the other wrapped around his stomach. Dropping the check and surging out of her chair and around the desk to catch him before he crumpled to the floor, she reached his side at the same time Winston did. Egon and Peter were immediately behind him, the last traces of tired apathy wiped from their looks by worried alarm. 

"What's wrong?" Peter demanded, moving to Ray's other side to displace Janine and helping him upright again, Winston still supporting him on the left. "What happened?" 

"I don't know," Ray gasped, leaning heavily on them. "All of a sudden everything hurt." Appearing as perplexed as everyone else, he cautiously pressed at his abdomen. "I feel fine now," he said, a puzzled crease between his brows. 

"Don't knock it then," Janine advised, returning to her seat and peering around the floor for the dropped check. "Just don't do that again, you about gave me heart failure." As sharp as her tone was, they could all hear the relief it covered. 

"Amen," Winston seconded as he released the arm he had been holding. "After a day like today a little pick-me-up would be nice but major surges of adrenaline are a bit much." 

"I'll make a note," Ray grinned shakily. 

"Please do." Although his agreement was as dryly flippant as it could sound, the slight cant of Egon's head and intentness of his gaze indicated he had not brushed the incident aside at all. When his suggestion for a renewed series of tests was casually refused by the fully recovered Ray, Egon continued to watch the engineer closely for the rest of the evening, faint worried lines sketched across his forehead long after the others had dismissed the incident. 

* * *

The Grand Central Station Tower high rise was thoroughly modern, a steel and glass monolith rising above the perpetual hubbub of the train station. It looked less likely to be the scene of a haunting than the building the ghostbusters called home, but years of experience had taught them ghosts didn't much care whether a place looked like it ought to be haunted or not. They were equal opportunity pests. 

Neck craned backward to look up the endless face of the building from the sidewalk, Peter asked the nervous security guard, "It's not on the roof, is it?" A sidelong glance at Egon caught the blond pausing in unloading their equipment to also pan his vision upward along the building's sheer face. A quick, almost subliminal shiver went through him before he turned back to the car and pulled out another proton pack. 

"No," the guard answered, trying very hard to make his report sound as matter-of-fact as if he were relaying the location of any normal intruder. "It seems to be centered in the elevators." Lowering his voice, he glanced over his shoulder, completely ruining the effect of casual professionalism as he added, "There was a really gruesome death here not long ago and I think most of the problems have been in the same elevator bank where it happened." 

"Oh?" His face carefully blank, Peter said noncommittally, "I think I remember hearing about that. Some security guard was killed, right?" 

Nodding, the guard attained a slightly higher degree of nervous tension. "Do you think it might be his ghost?" he asked. 

"We don't like to speculate on the precise origin or nature of a manifestation until we've had a chance to make some observations and readings of our own," Egon cut in smoothly as he joined them. "Would you please show us to the last location where the entity was seen?" 

"Of course." As Ray and Winston finished locking the car doors and approached, the guard turned and led the four of them into the building's entrance. "It's been seen mostly over in the service elevator area," he explained, passing the ranks of express elevators and unlocking a plain steel door that opened on a windowless, fluorescent-lit corridor. "At first there were just noises, moaning and whining that could have been the machinery, but then the night staff started hearing a voice mumbling at them, clearly enough to make out words some times." 

"What was it saying?" Ray asked with interest. 

"All they heard were a few stupid puns and some bad jokes." The guard shrugged. "That would fit what I've heard about the personality of the guy who was killed, though. Then this morning we found this." 

Ray gasped and Winston muttered, "Good God." The elevator in front of them was of the same plain, utilitarian design as the corridor, and its interior was nearly completely covered with dripping blood. Fresh and red, the distinctive metallic tang of it washed outward from the small enclosed area, filling the air with a sickening charnel-house reek. 

Peter turned slightly pale but all he said was, "Yecchh. No wonder you called us." 

Pulling his PKE meter from his breast pocket, Egon aimed the small device at the elevator. The two small antennae rose, lights flashing, and a steady beeping came from the meter. "Definitely paranormal," he pronounced. 

"Duh." Peter mimicked the slightly pompous tone the physicist had used. Clapping one hand on their guide's shoulder, he said easily, "OK, we'll take it from here. Why don't you get back to the lobby and make sure the tower is sealed off to civilians until we're done." Trying not to look too grateful for being dismissed, the guard nodded and left. 

"It could have been a sick prank," Egon pointed out reasonably. 

"Yeah," Peter readily admitted. "Coating the insides of freight elevators with blood always has been one of the more popular practical jokes." Unshipping his thrower, he studied the gory display through narrowed eyes. "So let's find this prankster and put him out of business, shall we?" 

Lips briefly tightening in irritation, Egon swung the PKE meter in a broad circle, scanning for changes in the ambient field. Unsuccessfully smothering a smile, Ray did likewise, zeroing in almost immediately on the elevator itself. "The highest readings are right in here, I think the spirit is tied to this elevator." Looking up from the readings, he wondered, "Do you suppose we should have asked what the dead guy's name was?" 

"Bob," Winston answered, staring up at the ceiling. When the other three tilted their heads upward, they saw the apparition hovering over them. Its name tag was visible on the blood-spattered khaki uniform over which red, porcine eyes glared at them from a round, fleshy face only slightly less red than the baleful eyes. A bushy excrescence over the fanged mouth was probably supposed to represent a mustache, since it was the same yellowed gray as the floating, tangled mess of long strands whipping around the head in the unnatural wind that accompanied the manifestation. 

"Cute guy," Peter muttered, bringing his thrower to bear on the ghost with a slow, casual shift of his body. Around him the others also carefully began to draw their throwers but before any of his partners could get a bead on the specter to provide a second entrapment stream, Ray buckled forward, crying out in pain. His attention dragged momentarily to the side, Peter fired a half-second too late and the ghost eluded his beam, closing on him rapidly in the small space. Backpedaling frantically, Peter ran into the wall and the ghost slammed into him. Peter's despairing wail blended with the howl of inane glee from the dead guard and smelly ectoplasm splattered all around at the impact. 

"Pete!" Winston exclaimed, but he held his position and grimly kept aim on the vicinity the specter had disappeared. As the ghost reformed above Peter's head he fired at it, and from where he had knelt next to the still moaning Ray, Egon's beam joined his. With two streams holding it in place, the ghost began to scream in earnest, its face growing impossibly redder and its eyes glowing crimson. 

Frantically wiping the gooey slime from his eyes, Peter groped for the trap attached to his pack, dropped it with a quick release of the catch, and tossed it under the ghost. "Clear!" he called as he stomped the trigger pedal, throwing one arm over his face to shield his eyes against the bright flare of its field at such close range. The trap snapped shut on the ghost and relative quiet descended on the whitewashed corridor. Letting his arm fall back to his side, Peter slumped against the wall briefly before gathering his energy and pushing himself upright. "We could have done that better," he said acerbically, grimacing in disgust as he looked down at his slime-coated uniform. 

"What the heck happened?" Winston asked, kneeling next to Ray and then helping Egon pull him back to his feet when he tried to stand. 

"I don't know," Ray said dazedly, blinking around at them. "Everything hurt all of a sudden. It was just like that time a couple days ago." 

"He scared the crap out of me just the same as then," Peter complained, still trying to scrub goo from his face and hair without much success, his hands being as thoroughly slimed as the rest of him. 

"Only it lasted longer," Egon observed. 

"Yeah, I was scared for a measurably longer time," Venkman agreed thoughtfully. His efforts at cleaning his hair had left it in an array of very punk spikes. 

"Peter!" Egon snapped irritably. "I meant Ray's spell, not your reaction to it." 

"You don't care that I was scared?" Peter sounded indignant and would no doubt have gone on about how hurt he was by Egon's apathy had Winston not slapped a hand over his mouth. 

"Thank you," Egon said, his tone clearly implying the unspoken 'What took you so long?' 

"Let's write them up the bill and get out of here," Winston advised, letting Peter go and bending over to pick up the blinking trap. "Then we take Ray back to the hospital and find out what's going on." 

"I'm not so sure they'll be able to help us." Wrinkling his nose at the odor emanating from Venkman, Egon followed Ray, not quite close enough to be hovering but within range to catch him should he collapse again. "Perhaps we should try checking the ectoplasmic contamination first." The overlay of worry in his voice brought Peter's head up sharply, but the physicist didn't speculate any further on what could be the matter, at least not out loud. 

* * *

Hot showers were, Peter decided contentedly, one of the finest inventions of the human race, easily rivaling any other cultural monument for the title of Best Representative Sign of Civilization. It was also extremely fortunate ectoplasm seemed to be universally water soluble. The idea of having to dip himself in solvent to remove the stuff on a regular basis was awful, not to even mention what petroleum distillates would do to his skin and hair. Nope, scrubbing down with clean, hot water and the small personal luxury of overly expensive soap to match his cologne was most certainly among the better ways there were to end an afternoon. 

Feeling renewed and in a good mood, he dressed comfortably in faded jeans and a sweatshirt nearly as dilapidated as his sneakers. Bouncing down the spiral stairs, he found Winston in the rec room transponder surfing with a bag of corn chips and a huge glass of cold milk at his side. "Great idea," Peter commented on his way through to the kitchen, and moments later joined him on the couch with his own glass of milk. "What's on?" 

"Not lots," Winston told him, giving up on the satellite he was cruising at the moment and punching up the next one to the west on the remote. "You know what they say, fifty-seven channels and there's nothing on." 

"Don't remind me, I still can't bear to think of how much we spent on the dish and decoder just so Ray could watch sports from places that don't speak English." Rummaging in the bag of chips, he pulled out a handful and the two of them sat in companionable silence for a while, scanning the airwaves for something entertaining. 

Nearly an hour later, Ray still hadn't come downstairs. Finally, Peter roused himself from the vintage silent movie showing on Main Street to go see why Egon's investigation was taking so long. Rolling his eyes dramatically in imitation of the acting they were watching, he put the back of one hand to his forehead, the other to his chest, and then pointed upstairs with exaggerated concern. Chuckling, Winston waved a Dorito at him. "So go find out," he said. "They probably got sidetracked by something and won't even think to get hungry until some time tomorrow if you don't go interrupt them." 

When he got to the head of the stairs, he could hear the shower running. That accounted for one of the missing mad scientists, at least. The only other light was coming from underneath the lab door, so he pushed it open and went in. Expecting to find the tall blond engrossed in some esoteric experiment, he was surprised to see him sitting at the bench, leaning his head on one hand as if in pain, the other hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist as it rested on his thigh. Hearing the door creak fully open, Egon started and straightened, hurriedly running a hand over his face as if to compose himself and pushing his glasses higher on his nose. 

"So what's wrong with Ray?" Peter asked, the desperate, haunted look he could see in Egon's eyes as he moved closer making him very afraid of the answer but more afraid of not knowing. 

"He's dying." The blunt statement escaped him and Egon pulled his glasses off, polishing them meticulously. It gave him a reason not to have to look up and see the expression on Peter's face. 

The last hour had been so pleasantly relaxing Peter was simply not mentally prepared to assimilate such news and the words turned to meaningless noises in his head when he tried to understand what he'd been told. "There's something wrong with the acoustics in here. I thought I just heard you say Ray's dying." 

Egon grimaced unhappily and nodded, carefully setting his glasses back in place on his face before he spoke again. "You heard correctly. The same ectoplasm that caused his blindness is now killing him." 

_No. No, I do not believe this._ "You got rid of it, didn't you? You cured him and yourself. How can he be dying if you're not?" Closing on him aggressively, Peter's voice hardened as if he suspected Egon were to blame for more than simply finding out what was wrong. 

"You remember the concentration in my body was nowhere near as high as it was in his, that's why the blindness struck me later, in slow stages. The modified trap got all the slime out of me but the residual concentration that could not be completely removed from his body is moving from all over and it's no longer concentrating in the optic nerve. Somehow exposure to the trap energies has shifted its preferential zone of operation and rate of activity. It's accumulating rapidly in his brain, specifically the hypothalamus, and is already beginning to interfere with some of his autonomic functions. Those fits of pain he's had are the first symptoms of his nervous system reacting to the poisoning effect." It was all clear enough in retrospect, as most hideously damaging consequences to ill-thought actions were. Egon felt his voice hoarsen and fell silent. 

"Give," Peter pressed relentlessly. 

As if the words were being dragged from him, Egon continued, "When it reaches a certain level, it will block his normal functions totally and he will die when his heart simply stops." Driven to unwilling honesty by the look of horror on Peter's face, he added in a low voice, "Unless his breathing quits first." 

Feeling like the next question was an inevitable cliché, Venkman asked as calmly as he could, "How long does he have?" 

Ray had helped with that calculation, and Egon felt his heart contract in pain as he recalled the way Ray's face had gone white and scared at the result. "We estimate approximately three days at the current rate of accumulation, certainly no more than four. Before then we will have to give him something for the pain, because as it short-circuits his nervous system he's going to experience progressively longer bouts of the same excruciating agony we've seen hit him twice so far." 

"So he gets to spend his last hours doped into unconsciousness?" When he thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, they still managed to do so. 

"There are narcotics that will permit him to remain awake...." 

Peter turned and slammed his fist into the wall. "That's NOT the point!" Wheeling back to face the physicist he pointed one finger and said accusingly, "You said he was fine, that there wouldn't be any adverse effects of the remaining concentration." 

Almost inaudibly Egon admitted, "I was wrong." 

"Wrong? I'm getting damned tired of these little mistakes of yours, Egon. What the hell is the matter with you?" Forcibly calming himself, Peter lowered his voice as he rubbed at his bruised knuckles. The dull pain rising from them was a faint echo of the tight fear he felt curling his stomach and he could see the same terror etched in the lines around Egon's eyes. "OK, there has to be a solution here." Thinking was the only thing that would help them now, not breaking apart with grief, so he pushed aside the urge to give in to his shock. Pacing in short, constrained lengths, he ground out, "It didn't make sense to risk blinding him before in order to remove the last of the slime, but I think he'd agree it's better to be sightless than dead. Why don't you crank up that modified trap and remove this stuff despite the damage it will do?" Turning, he found Egon shaking his head. 

"It's not a question of damaging his sight if we boost the power as high as it will go; with the slime concentrated in the new area using the same method with more power would kill him outright." Forestalling Peter's objection, he continued, "Severe damage to his central nervous system is the very least we could expect to result. I don't think he'd find permanent, crippling pain and dependence on an iron lung much preferable to death." 

Merely hearing the words shook Peter to his core and he couldn't bear the images that sprang so readily to mind fleshing out those calm pronouncements. Glaring at Egon as if not only the failure to find a solution but the entire situation itself was the physicist's fault, Peter snapped, "Then you'd better think of something, Spengler, and damn quick." Spinning on his heel, he left the lab, fleeing the pictures in his mind and the sight of them reflected on his friend's face. The door slammed behind him. 

"It's not my fault," Egon said to the empty room, but even to his own ears it didn't quite sound like he believed it. 

* * *

Breathing harshly, Peter slowed down abruptly before he got to the stairs. What was he going to do, go charging downstairs and yell at Winston too? Half-turning, he glanced back over his shoulder at the lab door, hearing again the way Egon's voice had faltered and broken in the recital of Ray's death sentence. The sick feeling of unreality that had come over him at hearing those words returned full force, swamping his regret at the way he'd blamed Egon. Being unfairly angry was the least upsetting reaction Peter could find within himself at that moment. 

The bathroom door opened and Ray emerged in a cloud of steam. When he saw Peter standing there he came to an uncertain halt and seemed to clutch his robe more tightly around himself. The damp, tousled spikes of his hair looked dark around his pale skin and in the dim light of the hallway his eyes were nearly pure black. For a few silent seconds he looked at Peter, then his chin tilted upward fractionally, almost defiantly. "Egon told you his theory." 

Holding Ray's gaze with his own, Peter nodded, then moved a step forward. Raising his arms slightly as if to offer a comforting embrace, he appealed softly, "Ray...." 

Ray shied back, his body tensing. "It's a mistake," he said fiercely. "I'm going to be fine." Eyes averted, he slipped past Peter and disappeared into the bedroom. 

Left alone in the hall, Peter let his arms fall back to his sides, then clenched his hands to still their trembling. _Did you think he'd take it well?_ Hanging his head, eyes closed for a minute, he drew slow breaths until he felt somewhat calmer. Then he remembered the way he'd seen Egon sitting, fists clenched just as his own were now, and he felt the helpless despair rise to choke him again. Less than a week.... The illusion of calm shattered and he caught his breath in an audible gasp at the spear of pain that went through him. Shaking at the effort of will it took not to smash his fists into the wall, instead he dug his knuckles into his eyelids until he saw brightly colored blobs of light behind them. _If only I'd never thought of this stupid business in the first place._ Rubbing his hands over his face again, he straightened his back and started down the stairs. 

"Are they coming down for dinner?" Winston asked without taking his eyes off the TV. 

"I don't think they're hungry. I'm really not, either." 

Missing the note in Peter's voice, Winston poked ruefully at the empty bag next to him on the cushion. "Yeah, me neither. I knew I shouldn't bring the whole thing out here, but...." Glancing up, he caught sight of Peter's face and surged out of the couch demanding, "What happened?" 

Peter's lips twisted in an attempt at a smile which fell so far short of success it visibly frightened Winston further. "It seems there was a miscalculation in that cure Ray got." 

"He's going blind again?" Winston guessed, his brow furrowing with worry. 

"That would be preferable. Egon says Ray is dying." There really wasn't any easy way to say it, and hearing the words aloud was somehow even worse than thinking them to himself. Crossing to the couch, he collapsed bonelessly into it. "He has three or four days left." 

Looking as stunned as if Peter had punched him in the gut, Winston slowly sat back down next to him. Staring sightlessly at the TV, he tried starting several questions that got no further than the first word. With an abrupt movement he grabbed the remote and shut the set off, as if the dramatically flaring organ music had been at fault for distracting him. "You're sure this is for real?" he finally managed to ask. 

"Egon is." 

The dismay in Winston's eyes reflected his acceptance of that endorsement as final. "What's Ray going to do?" 

"I don't know. He's sort of in denial right now. I don't think I quite believe it myself yet." Peter sighed dispiritedly, slumping deeper into the sofa. "You can't blame him for not wanting to think about it, but he doesn't have that long to come to terms with it." 

"And you can't help him until he admits he has something to come to terms with." There was genuine sympathy in his words, but also an unintended reminder of Peter's self-imposed duty for which the psychologist was grateful. 

"He won't want my help until he's ready and pushing will only make it harder for him to deal with. This is something I'm afraid he has to come to on his own." Sitting up straighter, he forced firm resolution into his voice and outlook. "We'll just have to play it by ear and be there for him when it sinks in." He could not manage to sound like he was looking forward to that time. 

Winston nodded approvingly, but there was no lightening of the grim lines that had gathered around his mouth. Holding himself very still as if trying to center on a deep well of tranquility within himself, he gave up after a minute and drew a shaky sigh. "This really, really sucks, man." 

"Yeah. That about covers it." Lapsing into his own morose silence, Peter stared with half-lidded eyes at the flat gray television screen and Winston saw no point in trying to draw him into further conversation. 

The next several hours passed in a silence strained by their need to talk about what was happening hampered by the mutual, unspoken fear that if they did discuss it they would somehow be bringing it closer. Much like Ray, neither of them was ready to come to terms with the approaching change in their lives nor did they want to explore feelings about something they were not yet willing to let overwhelm them. When they finally retired upstairs, they found Ray already in bed and valiantly feigning sleep. Egon wasn't in the room, but the crack of light under the lab door identified his whereabouts. 

Standing next to his own bed, Peter looked over at Ray, unhappy frustration naked on his face. "Ray," he called softly, his voice pitched so that if Stantz were really asleep he would not be wakened by it. There was a telltale hitch in the phony deep breathing coming from Ray's blanketed form, then the rhythm resumed with determined forcefulness. Lips compressing together in defeat, Peter turned away. 

"He'll come around," Winston whispered reassuringly, patting Peter's shoulder as he passed behind him. "Just give him time." 

_Time is the one thing we don't have any more,_ Peter thought bleakly, but he just nodded. However short the time they had left was, he also had the suspicion parts of it were going to seem like small, painful eternities. 

* * *

_The twisted, brown, third arm emerged wetly from the chest of the man grappling him by the shoulders. With horrifying speed the three fingers spread wide as the alien's arm headed for his own chest...._

Ray awoke with a gasp, his heart pounding, eyes wide open in the darkness. _Peter's right, I gotta stop watching those reruns._ Lingering dregs of the trapped fright he had felt in the dream still clouded his mind, making him search among his memories for a reason why he was so scared. When he found the answer lurking there in the shadows of his thoughts, he shied away from it in automatic panic. Turning over in his bed and pulling the covers up, he tried resolutely to go back to sleep, but the image of that third arm heading inexorably for his chest kept recurring, disturbing the peace he sought. Despite the horror of that picture, it was a safer one than reflecting on the very real fate bearing down on him. Forcing both away from his thoughts, he concentrated on the detailed mental disassembly of a trap and finally dropped back into uneasy, restless slumber. 

* * *

Peter kicked aimlessly in his sleep and muttered, the sounds he made not quite forming words that could be understood. In his dream he was trapped as the character in a silent movie, unable to convey his meaning except in exaggerated gesture and facial contortions. He was trying to tell Egon something very important but the cards explaining his dialog didn't match what he was really trying to say and no matter how loudly he shouted, he couldn't make himself heard above the organ music. It swelled and crescendoed around him, leaving him waving his arms and yelling with futile frustration at the uncomprehending faces of his three friends. Ray shrugged at him and smiled as he struggled to get across his warning, only to be foiled again by the inanely upbeat message the decorated still-frame inserted as his dialog. 

Turning again, the sheets twisting and dragging at him, Peter frowned and growled unhappily without ever quite waking up. 

* * *

If Egon had slept, he would have had nothing but nightmares. Knowing that quite well, he could not completely resent the churning, twisted knot his stomach had become because it did not allow him to so much as doze all night. Though he lay still with his eyes closed, his mind never slowed down, never stopped rerunning over and over all the mistakes he had made that had brought them to this pass. Each nuance of his actions cranked the tension in his belly another notch tighter, not with regret that he hadn't done things differently, but with loathing and recrimination for the inexcusably stupid way he had proceeded so confidently along the worst possible course. It was not so much guilt he felt, for he had done nothing ethically wrong, but a horrid disgust at himself for having been unable to see the inevitable outcome of what he had done. Worse, there was no remedy, nothing he could say or do to make it right. 

The night passed incredibly slowly for Egon. Even though he got no sleep, he rose as soon as the alarm went off, thankful he could finally get up and leave the tortured boredom of lying in bed awash in his own contempt for himself. 

* * *

It was a quiet and bleary-eyed bunch of ghostbusters that met in the kitchen for breakfast the next morning. Cradling a cup of coffee between his hands, Peter sat slumped at the table staring with half-opened eyes at the stains on the tablecloth. Across from him Egon was almost a mirror image, his preoccupied silence a contrast to the matter-of-fact awakeness with which he usually started the day. The most alert of them, Winston assessed the condition of his two companions, took a good guess at the state Ray would be in when his shuffling step finally brought him into view, and volunteered himself to do the cooking. Some mornings, he reflected to himself as he cracked eggs into the pan, it was just easier to take over in the first place than to clean up the consequences of not stepping forward. 

Joining the two at the table, Ray added his own scrutiny to the pair of gazes already focused on the table. Although, unlike Peter, he was showered and dressed, dark smudges still lingered under his eyes and he moved carefully, as if nursing a headache. The cheery bounciness he greeted every morning with was gone, replaced with a cautious silence. 

As much as he hated perky morning people, Peter decided he hated this funereal gloom even more. Dragging himself closer to awareness with an effort, he asked, "How are you feeling this morning?" Fearing a repeat of last night's scene, he deliberately kept the solicitousness he felt out of his tone. 

"Fine." Ray's voice was strained and brittle, his body radiating a sudden tension as if he were prepared to dash from the room at the slightest provocation. 

"Ho-kay," Peter sighed to himself. So much for the idea things would have improved overnight. Unfortunately he didn't have a Plan B yet, and relapsed into his own silence. 

"Glad to hear it," Winston said with neutral joviality. Bustling around with plates and a handful of silverware, he did a pretty fair job of pretending it was a normal day. "Since we took care of that job yesterday there's nothing on the schedule for today, so I'm going to run some errands. Anybody want me to pick up anything special for them while I'm out?" 

Egon looked up, his brow furrowing as he concentrated. "I'll need more organ meat," he said. His eyes tracked sideways to Ray, then he yanked his gaze back to Winston and an almost guilty flush stained his cheeks faintly. "Preferably brains and tripe." 

Ignoring the way Ray flinched as if stung, Winston nodded. "You're lucky I'm going all the way to the Bronx. After your last series of experiments there isn't a place within five miles of here that has any left." 

Peter snorted in attempted humor. "Yeah, and when they re-order tons of it to make up for the sudden demand, they're gonna be stuck with it all. Somebody here had better learn to make menudo or we're going to be single-handedly responsible for the economic ruin of at least six delis and two supermarket chains." 

"I know how to make menudo, and my mom has a mean recipe for chitlins." At the comical dismay on Peter's face, Winston smiled. "So it's economic ruin for those stores after all, hmm?" 

"'Fraid so. Hazards of capitalism and all that. Better them than us." Glancing down at his empty plate, Peter grimaced and pushed it away. "Come to think of it, I'm not sure I can even deal with sausage right now. Don't make any for me, I'll just go take my shower and scrounge something to eat later." Rising, he collected the place setting in front of him and returned it to the shelf unused before refilling his coffee cup and heading back toward the third floor. 

"Let me guess, you too?" 

Egon nodded, picking up his own silverware as he stood. "Yes. As soon as you get back with the supplies, please bring them up to me in the lab." 

Hands on his hips, Winston regarded Ray. "I suppose you're going to make it unanimous." 

Chagrined, Ray nodded, but then he smiled tentatively. "I want to pick up some stuff at Forbidden Planet, will you drop me off on your way?" 

"Sure, no problem." Although he suspected Ray wanted to escape the oppressively phony air of normalcy in the house more than he needed to pick up any new books, Winston determined to keep up his own act until Ray decided to declare the farce was over. "I'll be leaving in about half an hour so just meet me at the car, OK?" 

"Great." With a game imitation of his old bounciness, Ray helped clean the last items off the table. Pouring himself a large glass of orange juice, he disappeared in the direction of the library. 

"It's a good thing I hadn't gotten everything started yet," Winston sighed to himself before calling Slimer to come and take care of the leftovers. 

The group that convened at lunch time was somewhat more congenial. Ray had caught the subway back from the bookstore and buried himself in his acquisition, his concentration on the novel so fierce even Slimer didn't try to disturb him from it. Whatever Egon spent the morning in the lab doing, the solitude seemed to have given him some of his equanimity back, and Peter meandered upstairs from his office with the lazy sort of air about him that proclaimed he had spent the last couple hours with his feet propped up, catnapping. 

Just back in from his shopping trip, Winston was making himself a sandwich at the counter. "Feed yourselves," he ordered the other three when they had gathered and were loitering in the kitchen watching him with varying degrees of hopefulness. "I made breakfast and you didn't eat it, what makes you think I'm dumb enough to fix you all lunch too?" 

"Man's got a point," Peter sighed, pulling open the fridge and scanning its contents without enthusiasm. "Sliced brains on rye? Naahh. Tripe tartare with a side of potato salad? Naahh." Pushing the door closed again, he waved Egon toward it. "You first, I'm gonna have to think about this." The napping had done his ability to cope a world of good. 

"But tripe is good for you," Egon pointed out seriously, and buried his head in the fridge to hide his smile at the way Peter gagged. Soon everyone had sorted something to eat out of the supplies in the kitchen and converged on the dining room table. Egon and Peter continued their good-natured argument about the nutritional value of disgusting foods but Ray was silent on the topic, remaining immersed in the book he held in one hand, his sandwich in the other. 

"So what book did you get that you find so absorbing?" Egon asked him when Peter left the table to go fetch the rest of the milk. 

Ray held up the paperback so the physicist could read the title on its cover. "The second in Barbara Hambly's latest series. I can already tell there's got to be another after this one but I don't think I can stand to wait another whole year for it to come out." 

There was an awkward pause and Egon searched frantically for something totally innocuous to say. Blurting out the first thing that came to mind, he said, "We really should decide what sort of display we want to do for the Fourth of July parade. Given enough time to work on it, I think I can design a filter that will allow us to color low power proton streams in red, white, and blue." 

"That'd be great!" Ray enthused, his eyes lighting up with feverish excitement. "We could do a demonstration at twilight, before the fireworks." There was a moment of absolute silence. Ray caught sight of how pale Egon had gone and froze, beginning to look slightly panicked. 

"Aren't you overlooking something, Ray?" Peter asked as gently as possible from the doorway, the milk carton dangling from one hand. 

"No!" Ray snapped, a flash of fear haunting the back of his eyes. 

"Except the laundry," Winston pointed out quietly from the head of the table. "It was your turn this week, homeboy." 

With pathetic gratitude, Ray jumped at the distraction. "Oh yeah! I'll get it now." He dropped the book next to his plate and fled the room without a backward glance. 

"If only we could get Peter that excited about the chores when it was his turn," Winston joked, then abruptly his façade crumbled and he looked out of his depth. "I don't know about you guys but I don't think I can go on much longer with this pretending nothing's going to happen." 

"I don't think he can either," Peter observed soberly, his eyes still on the doorway through which Ray had vanished. 

"But what can we do if he won't admit there's anything for us to help him with?" Winston asked plaintively. 

Looking defeated, Egon only shook his head. His step dragging, he left the room and headed back up to the lab. It seemed to the two men watching him go that he went that direction more because he could not think of anything else to do than with confidence in the eventual results of his work. 

When Winston turned back to Peter, he caught a glimpse of something that might almost have been inspiration on his face. "Oh oh. What are you thinking?" 

Plastering a patently phony innocent expression across his face, Peter smiled with engaging blankness. "Nothing." 

"Bull," Winston snorted succinctly. "Next you'll be asking me to trust you." Before Peter could protest how hurt he was that any of his friends would consider not trusting him, Winston held up one hand wearily. "Fine. Surprise me. But for once I'd like a surprise around here to be a good one, OK?" 

"Trust me." Peter grinned diabolically. 

Zeddemore only rolled his eyes with a muttered, "Oh, brother." 

Venkman practically bounded down the stairs, waving an inattentive gesture of recognition in passing to Janine at her desk. Heading rapidly for his own office, he dug around for the yellow pages, plopped the huge volume open, and flipped rapidly through it. Pinning a number with his finger, he grabbed the phone and dialed. 

"City Lights Travel Agency, may we help you?" 

"Yeah, what's the going rate for four first class tickets to Fiji this week?" Peter asked, balancing the phone against his ear on one shoulder as he pulled his Visa card from his wallet. 

* * *

Ray had sorted out the piles and gotten the first load going when the pain struck again. Gasping, unable to draw enough breath to yell for help, he collapsed to the floor in front of the washing machine. Eyes squeezed shut in reflex, he was unaware of anything but the intense agony, and when it was finally over he could not guess how long it had actually taken him out of full consciousness. It had seemed like an hour at least, but blinking up at the machine still sloshing and humming through its first cycle, he knew it had to have been less than ten minutes. It occurred to him that even if he'd been able to call the guys there was nothing they could have done for him, so perhaps it was better they hadn't had the chance to come and watch helplessly as he writhed on the floor. The cement was cold and gritty underneath him and he shifted uncomfortably, trying to pull together enough strength to climb to his feet again. It was difficult and he felt weak all over, as if he had been exercising too hard and now when he tried to tense his muscles all he could get from them was a quivering protest but no support. "Guess I'm lucky it didn't hit while I was carrying all that stuff down the stairs," he reflected aloud to himself. At least next week he wouldn't have to worry about that hazard, it would be Winston's turn to do the laundry. 

Next week he wouldn't have to worry about anything at all. _Next week I'll be dead._ The thought ambushed him as viciously as the pain had. Frantically he pushed the knowledge aside, striving for the nebulous peace of not thinking about it, of pretending the whole thing would soon be discovered to be a mistake. But this time the awareness wouldn't fade, the sick certainty and fear in the pit of his stomach only got stronger and stronger until he couldn't stand it any longer. Curling back up into a ball on the cold, unyielding floor, he shuddered as the first tears rose in his eyes. _I'm only feeling sorry for myself._ A selfish, immature thing: to cry because he was going to miss out on so much he had wanted to do but never quite gotten to yet, for the pain that was just going to keep coming and coming until it didn't go away again, and because he didn't want to leave his friends and be alone again. Because he was afraid and he didn't know what to do and nobody could make it better. It didn't matter if it was selfish, he couldn't help it, and the sound of his helpless crying was drowned by the rush of water pouring into the machine for the rinse. 

* * *

Janine hummed softly to herself, foot tapping in time with the song on her headphones as she started the invoicing program. Mondays weren't really so bad, sometimes, the morning had been pretty easy, nobody'd noticed she was gone a little longer than an hour for lunch, and for the remainder of the afternoon all she had left to do was the billing from last week. The atmosphere at the firehouse had lightened so much since Ray's sight was restored that she had been forcibly reminded of how lucky she was to have a job which was not only interesting but allowed her to spend every day surrounded by people she really liked. Despite the crummy pay it was still a much better position than any of her friends had, and she didn't have to wear nylons to the office every day if she didn't want to. That was worth more than a few cents an hour. 

Judging by the number of receipts, the guys were still catching up on backlogged jobs. At the back of the file she knew she'd find several written over the weekend, because Ray had carried the laundry past her a little while ago and that was a chore normally reserved for Sundays. Picking up the first receipt, she groaned to herself. It had to have been done by Peter. Fortunately the customer had filled out the upper lines so she could tell where to send the bill, but below those lines the scrawl detailing services performed was so illegible she couldn't tell if the job had been a Class 2 or a Class 7. There was no point in asking Peter to decipher his own so-called handwriting, he'd just make some rude remark about how much they were overpaying a secretary who couldn't do her job without constant assistance. It was too nice a day to deal with that sort of harassment. 

"Egon!" she called hopefully, then grimaced to herself. Last time she forwarded a call to him he was in his lab, which meant he was probably deeply involved in something weird and complicated by now and wouldn't be amused at trivial interruptions. While any excuse to talk to him was a good one, even she had to admit this was pretty feeble. Sighing, she picked up the receipt and headed for the basement steps. Ray would remember the job and be able to tell her what that mess of scribbles on the total due line was supposed to mean. 

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she headed past the containment unit. "You guys let Peter write up the...." Her voice trailed off as she got closer to the laundry area and noticed Ray was curled up on the floor. It wasn't unusual to find him settled against the machines reading a book to pass the time when it was his turn to do the wash, but she finally registered he was huddled there crying miserably, oblivious to his surroundings. 

"It better not be that stupid comic book again," she muttered as she hurried the last few feet over and dropped to her knees next to him. "What's wrong?" she asked gently, laying one hand on his shoulder. 

He hadn't heard her coming, she could tell that much by the way he flinched at the touch. With an air of embarrassment she would have expected from anyone else but him, he wiped futilely at his eyes, struggling to sit up at the same time. The effort seemed to be more than he could manage and he ended up collapsing back where he had been, tears starting fresh from his eyes. Moved almost to tears herself at his misery even without knowing what had engendered it, she helped him up, pulling on one arm until he was sitting with his back against the vibrating machine. 

Instead of catching his breath and calming down, he bowed his head and half-leaned against her, sinking back into hiccuping sobs as if he no longer cared to hide his despondency from her. Janine was soon convinced it was something more serious than a comic book bothering him this time. The way he cried was different, without loud wailing protests. Instead he was racked by such a deep, wrenching despair that if she had not seen the other ghostbusters going about their business safe and unharmed earlier during the day she would have feared it was for one of them Ray grieved. Worried now, she wrapped her arms around him and patiently held him until the weeping began to slow and his breathing lost its trembling unevenness. 

"What's wrong?" she asked again, smoothing his hair with one hand in an unconsciously mothering gesture. Behind them the washer finished its last cycle and shut off with a loud click, leaving them in sudden silence. 

"I'm going to die," he said wonderingly into the quiet, as if it was something he had just figured out for the first time. 

Such was her experience with Ray's customary utter disregard for danger of all kinds that for an exasperated moment she thought he really had just discovered his own mortality, and she wondered what it was about doing laundry that had brought on the revelation. "We all are, Ray, its pretty inevitable." 

That earned her a weak, watery smile. "True. But only having a few days left made it hit me a little harder than usual." 

"What?" she demanded, gripping his shoulders and leaning back away from him to stare into his face. 

"I, uh," he faltered, suddenly realizing nobody had told her last night's news yet. Not only was he going to have to figure out how to do this right for her, he was going to get an awful lot of practice in the next few days at telling other people too. That prospect brought the tears rising quietly to his eyes again, and the expression on his face told Janine more than the words he could not find. 

"Oh, Ray," she breathed, her own eyes filling. Leaning forward she hugged him tightly, and he clung to her in return. 

"I'm glad you're here," he hiccuped after a while. "I can't talk to Egon, he feels so terrible already. And Peter is...." 

"Being Peter?" she suggested knowingly when he couldn't come up with the right words. 

He smiled at that, knowing she meant it with affection and glad of her understanding. "Exactly." 

"Peter will come around, he always does when somebody really needs him, and if you tell him I said so I'll slap you silly," she reassured him. "But what's Egon got to feel so bad about that you can't talk to him?" 

For a moment he struggled to find the words to define something he knew without having consciously thought out. Finally he said hesitantly, "He thinks it's his fault for coming up with the cure for blindness and then letting me use it even though it wasn't perfected. That mistake is what's killing me now. So he blames himself for me dying." 

"He said that? That he thinks he's killed you?" Her voice vibrated with indignation at the very idea. 

"No, not out loud." Again Ray had to think out the reason behind his certainty until it was clear enough to describe. "I can see it in the way he looks at me, like he's got some awful guilt hanging over him. According to the readings and his calculations there's no cure this time—" 

"And is he always right?" she demanded. 

"Well, actually he is," Ray said diffidently, but she cut him off. 

"I don't care. There's always a first time. You can't give up and I know he won't. If he's up there working his butt off it's because he thinks there's something that will cure you, so you get your butt up there and help him." Her finger poked unmercifully at his sternum and her eyes were narrowed to a commanding glare. The effect was so purely Janine-on-the-warpath that Ray had to smile despite himself. As he did, the lines of her face softened and she smiled back at him, glad her tirade had the desired effect. "So are you going to stop feeling sorry for yourself now?" she asked, not unkindly. 

"Probably not entirely," he answered honestly, then leaned forward on sudden impulse and kissed the end of her nose. "But next time it gets to me, I know who to come to." 

She colored faintly, then regained her fierce demeanor. "And don't you forget it either, bub." Climbing to her feet, she winced as circulation returned to her legs in prickling discomfort. As Ray struggled up next to her she dusted the cement grit off her skin and clothes, then straightened to upright and found him regarding her with a fond half-smile. "What?" she asked almost crossly, fists balled on her hips, flustered by the open affection in his face. 

"Thanks," he said simply, then stepped forward and hugged her to him. 

Leaning in against his strong, warm chest, she hugged him back. Tears rose close to the surface as she thought about losing him, but she swallowed them back and merely replied, "Any time." 

She was all the way back upstairs before she realized she hadn't remembered to ask him to translate the scribbling on the invoice she had carried down and left forgotten on the floor by the washing machine. Instead of going back down to fetch it, she locked herself in the bathroom and cried for half an hour. 

* * *

Ray took his time folding everything carefully and sorting all the socks and underwear into separate piles. _I'm going to die soon._ The thought felt strange every time it occurred to him, making him alternately angry, sad, desperate, and disbelieving. It was hard to accept the idea his whole life was essentially over, that he had done everything he was ever going to do. Despite the very real physical dangers their job frequently entailed he had never spent any time seriously considering the end of his life. Janine's assumption he hadn't realized his own mortality was to some degree quite valid. Now that he was faced with his imminent demise he didn't know what to do about the situation at all and his feelings were confused and conflicting. 

Eventually the laundry was done and he had no more excuse to avoid going back upstairs and facing the others. There was so much he had to say to them, but at the same time he had no idea how to go about beginning and wasn't even sure he wanted to try yet. What he really wanted was to talk with Peter and have their resident psychologist help him make some sense of what was happening. _I'm going to die soon._ For another fifteen minutes Ray sat on the bottom step fighting the reactions that swept through him, raging silently and crying quietly to himself and wishing that, if this had to be true, he could have enough courage and strength to meet his fate well. 

It took two trips to carry everything back upstairs but he didn't mind the extra stair-climbing and he put all the clean stuff back into his friends' closets and bureaus instead of leaving the piles on their beds as was the custom among them. He even made all the beds up with fresh sheets, then stood in the doorway looking over his handiwork and wondering if this was the last favor he was going to be able to do for the three men he thought of as family. The thought was depressingly pathetic and the feeling led him to wonder whether, even if he wasn't about to die, he ever would have been able to do anything for his friends that really would be worthwhile. Maybe dying early in a pointless accident was just another indication of the utter futility and worthlessness of his whole existence. 

A warm hand descended on his shoulder and although he hadn't heard anyone coming he was too exhausted and disconsolate to startle at the touch. "Penny for your thoughts," Peter greeted him. 

"I might as well die now, since I don't seem able to do anything worth living for," he answered with brutal honesty, though his voice was so mild and introspective he might have been admitting only to thinking fondly of his parents. 

Sensing the unintended but real test in those words, Peter bit back his first reaction and instead tightened his grip on Ray's shoulder, replying gently, "That's not really true. Not only is your day job unique and vitally important to everyone in this city, we need you personally too. Your very existence is worth more than anything we could give for it." He moved around to face Ray, peering earnestly into the troubled brown eyes and seeing the reddened traces of recent tears. His touch lightened and he said very softly, "Ray, I will help you however I can if you will let me. Please, talk to me." 

_I'm going to die soon._ A bright sparkle in his eyes betrayed Ray's reaction, and his lips trembled as he shook his head. "How can I tell you what it's like? Intellectually I know I'm going to die in less than a week, but even now I don't really believe it. I keep thinking somebody's going to stand up and say 'April Fool!' any minute now. But at the same time I know it's true and I feel so confused." 

Peter nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak. 

"I guess I ought to be doing something about it." Ray gestured vaguely. "Something besides the laundry, anyway. Make sure my will is in order and all that sort of clearing up loose ends, but I don't even know where to start." Hanging his head, he admitted in a low voice, "And if I do start, then I'll realize how close it is and I'll be afraid." 

"Hey, it's OK to be afraid," Peter said quickly. Reaching out he grasped Ray's shoulder, his grip tightening fiercely as he added, "I'm scared shitless and I'm not the one who's dying." 

Ray's face crumpled and he looked away, biting his lip to still its incipient trembling. The brightness in his eyes rose and spilled over, tracking wetly down his cheeks. "I'm sorry." 

With a little tug, Peter drew Ray to him, and his breath wheezed out at the strength that embraced him desperately. Arms wrapped around Ray's heaving shoulders as the first sobs surfaced, he sighed, "Ray, you ineffable nincompoop, you've got nothing to apologize to me for." 

Ray's breath caught in a tiny attempted laugh that ended as no more than a gasp. "You know what ineffable means?" 

"Hey, you'd be surprised what I know. Come on, let's sit down for a while, you can tell me what you want to share and I'll amaze you with my vocabulary." Drawing the sniffling engineer with him, Peter headed toward the nearest bed, his own, and sat on the edge of it, Ray held within the circle of his arm. "Now, tell me what confuses you the most and maybe we can come up with a way around it." 

"It's just not fair!" Ray hiccuped, then flushed and closed his mouth on the rest of whatever he had meant to say. 

For a while Peter merely continued holding him, letting the unqualified acceptance of his affection soothe the nervous fear he could feel shivering through Ray's body. When he felt Ray begin to relax against him, he asked sympathetically, "What's not fair?" 

In a very small voice, Ray admitted, "I can't help thinking it's not fair Egon and I were both in the explosion but I'm going to die while he's OK, and then I hate myself for wishing he was dying too." 

"You don't really want him to die, do you?" The tone of Peter's voice conveyed quite clearly he didn't believe any such thing could be true. 

"Of course not! I love him, I'm glad he's OK. But it's not fair!" 

"Ray, you ineffable nincompoop," Peter repeated lovingly. "You don't think it's unfair he isn't dying too, or instead of you, you think it's unfair you have to die at all. There's nothing to be confused about in that, I think it's horribly unfair too and if I ever get my hands on those Fate bimbos, I'm going to put their stinking golden shears where the sun doesn't shine for this one." 

A small, timorous smile crossed Ray's face at the mental image that threat conjured up. If anyone could carry it out, an irate Peter Venkman was certainly the best one to bet on. And Peter was right, it wasn't fair at all, but what wasn't fair was his own condition, not the health of one of his best friends. In fact, his being closer to the explosion source had probably helped shield Egon and may even have saved his life. That sudden new thought firmed his smile. Facing death to protect his friends was not something to rail against as an unfair event, it was an opportunity to be grateful for, and he vowed not to complain about it again. 

"Aha! One down," Peter said triumphantly, without suspecting the second conclusion Ray had drawn his comfort from. "What's next? I'm on a roll." 

Ray was silent for a few minutes and Peter didn't press, letting him find the words for his thoughts on his own. "I don't know how to tell people," he finally said. "I should call Aunt Lois and Cousin Sam and a few of my friends, but I don't know what to say to them. 'Hello, I'm dying' just doesn't sound right." 

"No, it doesn't," Peter agreed, keeping his voice steady with an effort. "Do you really need to call them to say that, or could you write letters instead?" he suggested. "That way you could take your time and say everything you wanted in the way you wanted to." 

"Yeah, but they wouldn't get through the mail until after...." he swallowed hard and finished, "I was gone." 

Peter nodded. "True. Is that really bad?" At the unbelieving look he got, he asked gently, "Do you think it will be better for them to know what's happening to you in advance? They'll want to come and be with you, and if that's what you want, I'll make the calls myself for you. Is that what you want?" When Ray hesitated, a pained expression in his eyes, Peter added, "You can have whatever and whoever you want by you, Ray, don't ever think I would try to keep you from doing whatever you feel is right. If you want Dopey Dog himself I'll find a way to get him here, I swear it. All I'm asking you for is to think about the obvious consequences of whatever you do, OK?" 

His eyes slowly filling with tears, Ray nodded, biting his lip to still its trembling. "You're right," he whispered hoarsely. "I love them, but the only people I want with me," his eyes overflowed, tears tracking down his cheeks, "when the time comes is you guys. You're my real family." As his breath caught in a sob, he turned toward Peter blindly seeking the support of a friendly shoulder. 

Gathering him in a tight embrace, Peter held him close, rocking him and murmuring tender, soothing phrases that caught on the lump in his own throat. Face pressed to Ray's hair, he held his grief in fierce check, forcing himself not to weep with his friend because he knew his counsel was needed, and if he broke down now he would be useless for anything but angry, violent cursing of all that had brought them to this. 

Clinging to Peter's shirt, face buried in the psychologist's chest, Ray cried, but this time it wasn't for just losing his life. His grief was for having to leave the men he lived and worked with and felt closer to than anyone in the world. Wherever he would find his spirit wandering after death, whatever plane of existence or dimension of being, he would be alone. It terrified him to realize he would be completely cut off from their support, and even more to realize his spirit might never meet theirs again. He would miss them so much he already felt the longing for their presence filling him, a mere taste of the years of lonely wandering to come. "I don't want to go," he sobbed, pressing against Peter and clutching him as if afraid of being torn bodily away. 

Heart breaking, Peter could only hold him close and fight to keep his own ragged breathing from shattering into sobs. "God, Ray, I don't want you to go," he whispered huskily. His control wavered, grief and despair overtaking him with the knowledge of how few days they had left, how pitifully few hours out of a lifetime's thousands still remained. All they had been and done and shared together was so close to ending, torn from them by a stupid, senseless accident. A tiny flare of anger stirred in him at the horrible pointlessness of it and he fanned that anger higher, using its power to pull himself back from the edge of breakdown. Only the rage he could scrape out of his wildly roiling emotions gave him the strength not to give in to the unbearable desolation and fall apart. But he held Ray very tightly and his breathing refused to steady down no matter how he concentrated on controlling it. 

When Ray's crying slowed, he was able to feel the desperation in Peter's embrace, and the stab of fear that went through him wasn't for his own sake but for what he suddenly understood his friends would have to face. All his dread up to that moment had been for what he himself had to face, the pain and dying and aloneness. The uneven sound of Peter's breath and the almost bone-cracking strength that held him close told their own story of the anguish his dearest friends felt at his loss, and he was ashamed of having been so self-centered. Shifting in Peter's arms, he snuggled against him, offering as much comfort as he had been given. Ray tightened his arms around Peter's body and hugged him. "I love you." 

"What was that for?" Peter asked fondly, swallowing the crack in his voice and loosening his grip on Ray. 

Ray drew back, eyes shining with a soft, lambent affection straight from his heart. "Just because. And I don't know how many more opportunities I'll get to tell you, but however many there are, it won't be enough." 

"No," Peter agreed, his eyes stinging with tears whether he willed it or not. "There will never be enough for me, either." With the back of one hand, he brushed at the tracks on Ray's face and added softly, "Not even if I said it over and over without stopping from now until you're gone." 

The shy gratitude in Ray's look at that moment was the same he might have had if he just been given all he had ever wanted to ask out of life. He leaned closer again, finding a bit of peace in being near one of the people he trusted most, and as Peter ruffled his hair gently, he asked in a resigned tone, "What do we do now?" 

The question reminded him of what he had come upstairs to offer Ray in the first place. "Actually, I did have an idea in mind." Shifting, he pulled the envelope of airline tickets out of his back pocket, briefly thankful he'd driven out for them as soon as the reservations had been made. Fanning out the tickets in his hand, Peter prolonged the suspense before pulling one of the folders from the group and handing it with a flourish to Ray. 

"Fiji?" Ray looked up blankly from the ticket in his hand to Peter. "What's this for?" 

"For you to take a trip with us, you dope," Peter smiled. "See, we all get on a plane, that's a big machine thing that flies, and then—" 

"I know that much," Ray interrupted with exasperation. "I mean why, why do you want to go on this trip now?" As he asked the question he really didn't know but it took only a few seconds of the expression on Peter's face to give him the answer, and he couldn't let his friend say the words. "To make my last days fun?" he asked gently, the stricken way Peter dropped his gaze confirming the guess. "You didn't have to," he said kindly, at a loss over the gift but not knowing how to refuse it or even if he really wanted to. 

"Don't you want to go? I thought it would be nice, just the four of us away somewhere, no ghosts or work, just hanging out in a really great place." Peter swallowed hard, met Ray's eyes, and forced himself to say, "If you only have a few days left with us, I want them to be as special as possible." 

Tears prickled sharply behind Ray's eyes, but he blinked them back and shook his head, finally sure what he wanted more than anything. "Staying at home with you guys is as special as I want." He handed the ticket back to Peter with an apologetic half-shrug. "How could anywhere else be any better than that?" 

For a moment Peter half-opened his mouth to argue, but then he too shrugged and, putting the ticket with the others, set them aside. "Whatever you want, Ray, I meant that. If you change your mind, they're here, and if you don't, that's fine with me too. All I want is for you to be as happy as possible." 

"I am." His sunny smile was almost at its usual wattage before he sobered again. "I think I'll go start some of those letters." 

Peter stood with him and followed down the spiral stairs, pausing at the base as Ray headed for the library. "If you need any help, just call." 

"I will. Thanks." Ray's smile and the intensely affectionate tone of his voice made the plain words say 'I love you' all over again. 

* * *

Feet propped up on his desk, Peter fanned the tickets like a hand of cards, pondering them and destinations in general. 

"Going someplace?" Winston asked, pushing open the low swinging gate and approaching the desk. 

Instead of answering, Peter asked him, "If you were going to die in a few days, where would you spend your last hours?" 

Winston shrugged. "Haven't thought much about it, to tell the truth." His expression softened as he realized who Peter had to be referring to, and he sat down in the visitor's chair. "Does Ray want to go someplace?" 

Peter shook his head, fanning the tickets thoughtfully again. When he spoke his voice was introspective, almost puzzled. "I thought it would be a good idea to go someplace fun and exotic and pleasant, so I got us all on the next plane to Fiji. Hell, I wouldn't want to stick around here if I didn't have much time left, I'd want to go see the places I hadn't seen yet, do the things I always wanted to try. Parasailing, bungee jumping, the lambata, like that." 

"But he doesn't." 

Peter shook his head again. "Said he wanted to stay here, and of course I didn't try to change his mind." Green eyes regarded Winston with uncertainty. "I thought it was a good idea." 

"You're not the one who's dying," Winston pointed out gently. "What makes Ray happy isn't that stuff, it's being at home with his friends. His family." He paused contemplatively. "I think I understand where he's at, Pete. I'd rather spend my last few hours surrounded by my loved ones instead of sun, sand, and a lot of strangers." 

"We'd be there too," Peter protested. "The other stuff would just help keep his mind off what was coming." 

"But it won't be home. He's loved this place since the first time you guys saw it, you told me how excited he was when the realtor showed it to you. He's comfortable here, and he needs that comfortable familiarity to combat the fear." 

Dropping his feet off the desk, Peter leaned forward on it and asked with sincere admiration, "So how come you never got a degree in psychology?" 

"It doesn't take any special brain power to see what's going on," Winston told him kindly. "It takes being able to look outside your own pain long enough to see what you always knew about your friend. It's not at all surprising you haven't been able to do that yet, you love him too much and you're as freaked by the idea of him dying as he is." 

Peter looked suddenly trapped and scared, but before he could bolt or lash out Winston reached forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. "We all love him, and losing him like this has us all messed up. You're dealing as well as you can right now, just like the rest of us. There's nothing else we can do except help each other as much as possible." 

"You are a very wise man," Peter finally said, his expression losing its hunted terror but shifting instead to a shuttered mask of nonchalance. "I make it a policy never to argue with very wise men." He pulled open the top drawer and stuffed the tickets into it, then sat back. "Why don't we at least do something special for dinner?" 

"You buying?" Winston asked genially, reaching for the yellow pages. 

"Sure." Looking somewhat discomfited by the eyebrow Winston raised in his direction, he muttered, "Well, if he doesn't want the trip, a little decent food is about the most I can do for him, isn't it?" 

"You can do plenty more, Pete, just by being here. But until you figure that out yourself, I make it a policy never to argue with very generous men." 

* * *

Dinner had been a memorable affair at one of the best restaurants in Manhattan, noted for not only having extraordinary food but for a casual and friendly atmosphere unusual among the gourmet establishments of the city. The bill for the four of them had come to a little over $500 before tip, but almost half of that had been the superb wine Peter had chosen. Stuffed to the limit, they had lingered over coffee and brandy before leaving, smiling in happy, satiated memory of how good everything had been, from the delicately seasoned vegetables to the atrociously decadent desserts. Winston had partaken most sparingly of the wine and his dessert choice hadn't been liberally laced with exotic liqueurs, so he chose to drive. Too full to have any inclination to argue, the others relaxed in Ecto's spacious seats, nodding toward sleep as the car cruised uneventfully through the streets toward home. 

Half-dozing next to Ray in the back, Peter was shocked back to full consciousness when Ray suddenly spasmed with a gasp and fell against him. Automatically wrapping his arms around Ray to hold him across his lap, Peter didn't have to ask what caused the miserable, shuddering moans Ray was trying unsuccessfully to smother. Shaking, Stantz clung weakly to Peter's jacket and pressed his face into the linen, eyes squeezed tightly shut but leaking tears of pain he couldn't suppress. 

"What's wrong?" Winston demanded over his shoulder, slowing and beginning to pull to the curb. 

"Just keep driving," Peter answered grimly. "The hospital can't help so all we can do is get him back to the house and make him comfortable." 

"I concur," Egon said in an undertone. Reaching over the back of the seat, he stroked Ray's hair gently, helpless to offer any other assistance from his position in the front and knowing there was nothing else he could do anyway. 

An unhappy crease between his brows, Winston complied, though the muffled sounds he could not avoid hearing Ray utter made concentrating on driving difficult. 

By the time they reached home the attack had finished, leaving Ray sweat-soaked and too exhausted to pull himself upright from Peter's lap until he had rested for a few more minutes. Although he probably could have made it up the stairs on his own, he did not protest when Peter and Egon flanked him, arms crossed around his back, and supported him as far as the base of the spiral stairs. Clinging tightly to the handrail, he slowly made his own way up toward the bedroom. "Sorry for ruining the evening," he mumbled as he paused to rest again at the top of the steps. 

Close behind him, Peter reclaimed his position at Ray's side, steadying him with an arm around his waist. "You didn't ruin anything." Leaning closer until soft auburn hair tickled his nose, he whispered in Ray's ear, "I love you." Straightening, he smiled back at the shining, reciprocal look in Ray's eyes. "So you can't ruin anything." _Except my life when you go._

"Indeed not," Egon concurred as he took the other side and they resumed progress toward Ray's bunk, where they deposited their charge. The deep warmth of his voice left little doubt he guessed what Peter had murmured to Ray and none at all that he felt the same. 

Declining with a smile their offer to help him undress, Ray changed into his pajamas and lay down, watching through half-open eyes as the other three went through their own nightly rituals. The scene was unremarkably domestic and Ray smiled in sleepy contentment at Peter's outburst of threats upon finding traces of green slime on his pillow. The clean pillow Winston lobbed at the psychologist to shut him up normally had a 50% chance of starting an all-out pillow fight, but tonight everyone was too full and lethargic to contemplate such an exercise. Drifting comfortably to sleep despite the weary ache of slightly strained muscles, Ray's smile lingered faintly, an external indication of the contentment he felt over deciding not to go on the trip Peter had offered. No other place made him feel so happy and safe as this house, full as it was of laughter and the memories of years of friendship. This was where he wanted to be, where he belonged, where he would always be surrounded by the love of his chosen family. 

* * *

Flying was so easy Ray wondered why he didn't do it all the time. Just a few effortless flaps of his arms and he was higher than the treetops, looking down on the cluster of buildings of his cousin Sam's farm. All around the beautiful, rolling countryside spread out like a patterned quilt, the sky around him clear and blue but for some scattered, fluffy, white clouds. Higher and higher he flew, reveling in the freedom, until suddenly the magic deserted him without warning. Dropping like a stone, nothing he did slowed his descent, and as the ground hurtled toward him he forced himself awake with a gasp. 

Ray's next breath caught in his throat as the all-too-familiar pain washed through him, curling him into a ball with its wrenching agony. Shuddering breaths hissed slowly between his teeth as he fought to keep them from growing to moans that would wake his sleeping friends. The attack seemed to go on forever, and when it finally abated he was left huddled on his bed shaking with reaction, panting through parted lips and wishing he had the energy to go get a glass of water. 

A warm hand descended on his shoulder, steadying him with its gentle strength. Without needing to look he knew that touch, and sighed, "Egon. I didn't mean to wake you." 

"You didn't, I was in the lab," the physicist answered in a low, soothing tone. The bed settled under his weight as he sat on the edge. "Another attack?" he asked quietly. 

Ray nodded and began to straighten, finding his efforts assisted and glad of the help for his very bones felt as solid as well-boiled fettucini. When he was reclining at ease again, he smiled tiredly up at Egon. "I'm going to miss you," he said with simple honesty. 

Moved by unbearable tenderness, Egon reached out, his hand trembling, to caress the side of Ray's face. "I will miss you so much," he whispered hoarsely, his voice shaking almost as much as his touch. When Ray held his arms up, Egon didn't even try to resist the invitation but leaned over and gathered Ray to his chest, wrapping the younger man tightly in his arms. As Ray embraced him in return, Egon's faltering control hovered on the edge of breaking, betrayed by the ragged unevenness of his breathing. 

Ray held him and let himself be held, offering his presence and affection without trying to encourage his friend to let go of that shaky composure. The way Egon held him said as much as tears would have, and each knew with sad resignation there would be plenty shed later on. 

* * *

The giant cockroach swelled from the size of a Buick to that of a delivery truck, antennae twitching malevolently in Peter's direction. Running was obviously the only option, but no matter how fast Peter tried to move his feet, his legs felt as if they were mired in deep mud and he could not do more than slowly drag them forward. The scuttling horror behind him suffered no such handicap, gaining on him steadily, its carapace rustling in counterpoint to the clicking of the huge, loathesome monster's multiple legs hitting the street's surface. Peter's inability to run away drove him closer and closer to mind-blanking panic while the frustration of trying so hard without result simultaneously maddened him. Anger at his helplessness and hatred of the creature behind him accelerated his fear as he struggled harder to move quickly, but the more energy he poured into the effort, the slower he went until finally he could not go forward at all. Trapped, he tried to turn, and discovered even that was impossible. He could only writhe in place with desperate, useless rage as the abomination pursuing him reached out with curving brown claws and made an awful, burbling, chuckling noise.... 

Breath catching in his throat, Peter awoke with his heart pounding, its beating gradually slowing back to normal as he sipped steadying lungfuls of air. 

"Are you all right?" a deep, quiet voice asked from the foot of his bed. 

"Geez!" Peter twitched violently in surprise, his heart accelerating to a mile a minute pace all over again. "Stop sneaking up on me!" Peering through the darkness at Egon's tall silhouette, he squinted, confirming his impression the physicist was dressed in slacks and a lab coat instead of his nightshirt. "What are you doing up at this hour, anyway?" he demanded angrily. The stifling sense of helplessness left over from his dream merely echoed the overwhelming trapped despair he felt over Ray's condition and Peter let the tired rage wash through him again. "Cooking up some new disaster?" 

"I was working," Egon replied with wounded dignity. 

"That's what I was afraid of," Peter growled, turning his shoulder on Egon and pulling the covers back up around himself. As Egon silently headed for the door, Peter hissed at his retreating back, "Try not to kill all of us in our sleep, will ya?" 

"At least if he does it'll be quiet," Winston's sleepy voice grumbled from across the room. The sound of the lab door shutting with only slightly more force than necessary punctuated his comment. 

"That's not fair, you guys," Ray said very softly into the quiet. "None of this is his fault." 

The silence in the room took on a waiting quality, but only Winston's abashed voice replied, "You're right, Ray. I'm sorry." 

* * *

When he finally caught himself nodding over the tray of specimens on his bench, Egon decided to go to bed. Hoping the length of time it had been since he had slept would allow him to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep, he quietly prepared for bed without waking the others. Yet, as tired as he was, he still spent an hour repeating the painful self-flagellation of the previous night before finally falling into a restless sleep. 

_Egon looked up at the clock on the classroom wall, noting with increased panic that he had only five minutes left before the final exam would be declared over. The paper in front of him on the desk was blank except for the questions it had come with and he flipped through the pages with anxious fear clawing at his stomach, looking for even one where he recognized the equations or understood how to begin solving the problem. If only he had remembered before the last week of school that he was in this class, but he had forgotten it entirely, not attended a single lecture, and now there was no way to avoid taking the test and flunking out of the graduate program. Humiliation and ruin were all he could anticipate, and his parents would never forgive him._

"I promise I'll go to class next semester if you let me drop now," he mumbled into his pillow, a crease of anxiety pressed between his brows. His breathing shifted unevenly and he escaped the lecture hall debacle to another scene. 

_The experiment was in progress, the primary reactions started, and the next step required the addition of a dilute acid reagent. Egon stared at the two beakers he held, both half-full of clear liquid, unable to remember if he was supposed to add the water to the acid, or the acid to the water. It was a simple, basic precept in chemistry, something he had known for so many years that he couldn't recall when he had learned it, and it was gone completely from his mind. An ominous hissing noise from the main pressure vessel reminded him there was not much time to waste, but it also served to emphasize his awareness that mixing the high molarity acid to the water in the wrong way would also lead to dangerous results. Paralyzed with indecision, upset by his inability to remember such a simple rule and even more so by his failure to reason out the correct method based on his general knowledge, Egon felt worse and worse as the experiment went further and further out of control._

* * *

The next morning when Janine arrived for work, all the guys were up and about already, even Peter. When he motioned for her to join him in his office, she almost asked what sort of emergency could have gotten him up and moving so early, then bit her tongue. The dark lines under his eyes were evidence enough he'd slept no better than she had last night, and sufficient reminder of what haunted them all. Steeling herself, already suspecting what he had to say, she followed him into his office and stood in front of the desk waiting until he spoke, her suspicions confirmed by the way he avoided meeting her eyes. 

"You can take the next couple days off," Peter told her abruptly, his usual charm absent. "There's no business to take care of." 

"No way, Dr. V.," Janine said firmly. "You need me here more than ever." 

"Look, I'm not gonna pay you to sit around doing nothing so you might as well take the time off. We'll call it compassionate leave or something," he said, irritation building in his voice. 

"Like you pay me so much to start with you think I'm gonna miss a couple days of your crummy minimum wage?" she replied scornfully. "Ray is my friend too, in case you haven't noticed, and even if you don't pay me I'm sticking around." 

"What for? To watch him die?" Peter asked cruelly. 

Stung, she drew herself up to her full height and crossed her arms on her chest. "Maybe it hasn't occurred to you that since his condition isn't supposed to be public knowledge, somebody has to keep answering the phone and sounding like things are normal." Looking down her nose at him, she visibly restrained a sneer at his disheveled state. "As normal as they ever get around here, anyway. None of you bozos are capable of that right now. You need me, and I'm staying." 

"You're fired. Go home," he snapped curtly. 

"You can't fire me," she told him with smug serenity. 

"I can do whatever I want," Peter snarled with uncharacteristic violence. "I own this business." 

"You don't own me," she said, maintaining her calm, superior air. "I'll go straight to the tabloids and spill the whole story. You want to keep this under wraps and give Ray the peace and quiet he wants, you keep me on board. Otherwise, start working on your speech for Geraldo." 

"That's blackmail." He glowered at her hotly. "You wouldn't." 

"Do I look like somebody who makes empty threats?" she asked with poisonous sweetness. "Have I ever given you reason to believe I wouldn't do anything it took to pay back somebody who messed with me?" 

"No," he admitted reluctantly. "You'd do it just to spite me, I know that." Sighing, he rubbed one hand across his eyes. "All right, you can stay. But you keep quiet and stay out of the way." 

"Of course," she agreed, turning to leave his office. 

"And no overtime!" he yelled at her retreating back. 

Gritting her teeth, she swallowed back the unkind response that came to mind and sat back down at her desk, only then noticing how tightly clenched her hands were. Forcibly relaxing, she rubbed ruefully at the crescent-shaped red indentations her nails had made on her palms. 

"He has a way of making people feel that way," an understanding voice greeted her, and she turned her head to see Winston coming down the stairs. 

"Yeah, you think I'd be used to it by now," she agreed with a small smile, the tension in her shoulders also slowly easing. "He's always been like that, except when he's worse." 

Winston grinned, then sobered as he joined her at the desk. Lowering his voice, he asked seriously, "You wouldn't really call the press about Ray, would you?" 

Checking behind her to make sure Peter wasn't within listening distance, she whispered, "Of course I wouldn't! It would be so awful for Ray. I couldn't hurt him like that, especially not now. But Peter doesn't know that." 

"You'd be surprised," Winston smiled, relieved and simultaneously ashamed he hadn't trusted her. 

"Hmmfff. He does a pretty good job of hiding it," she sniffed disdainfully. 

"That's one thing our boy is definitely very good at," he agreed somewhat sadly. Giving Janine a quick, consoling pat on the arm, Winston continued around the corner of the filing cabinet and pushed open the low gate to Peter's office. 

The creak of the hinges brought Peter's head up. Only because he was looking directly at the psychologist did Winston see the flash of panic in his eyes, gone so quickly it could almost have been imagined. In its place was a defiant aloofness that was quite in contradiction his normally carefree, insouciant features. 

Thinking to open the conversation neutrally, Winston asked, "Where's Ray? Haven't seen him since breakfast." 

"He said he wanted to spend this morning writing some letters." Peter concentrated fiercely on rolling a pen back and forth across the blotter. "I told him to call me if he wanted any help, but I'm pretty sure it's a task he'll prefer to finish on his own." 

Winston shook his head, a reluctantly admiring smile lifting the corners of his mouth. "You just don't give up, do you?" he asked kindly, balancing his hip on the edge of the desk as he surveyed the seated man. 

"None of us do," Peter returned proudly, only a passing unsteadiness in his voice giving away the effort he was putting into remaining in control. 

"That's a fact," Winston agreed readily. "So why in the world did you try to get Janine to leave?" 

"There isn't any work, there's no reason to pay her to sit here," he answered sullenly, evincing a sudden interest in some loose paper on his desk. 

"There you go, not giving up again," Winston remarked. When Peter glanced up in uneasy startlement at the comment, Zeddemore continued in a voice pitched low enough not to carry over the filing cabinet barrier, "It was a good thought, Pete, but you can't spare her from feeling Ray's death. You can't spare any of us, not even yourself, and trying will only make it hurt worse." 

"Worse? How could it be worse?" The naked pain finally visible on his face matched the hoarse note of agony in his harshly whispered response. "My god, we're losing Ray and you tell me it could be worse?" 

Leaning closer, Winston held Peter's gaze with his own and matched his intensity. "Yes, I'm telling you it could be worse. You may not want to believe it, but Ray would tell you the same thing I'm going to. Losing him is bad enough but if you drive away your friends by refusing to allow them to grieve with you, it will be worse. If you destroy the family we have here by removing yourself from it, then it will be worse. We'll not only lose someone we love, we'll lose each other and everything else Ray loves and wants so badly to be part of." Against his will his voice cracked and he had to stop to clear his throat. "Would you rather lose Ray or him and everything we've all built together?" he finished. 

Peter's expression had begun to cloud over with pain and anger at Winston's words. "What difference does it make?" he grated. "When Ray dies it all changes anyway, there's no way to save the way things are." 

It was the look in his eyes even more than the tone of his voice that gave Winston a full understanding. Though Peter would never give up he was still experiencing the darkest despair he had ever known. If he could not quit, neither could he see any hope or reason for going forward, and the unfamiliar feeling of helplessness and futility had paralyzed his ability to get ahead of the situation long enough to cope with it on his own terms. It was almost easy to see how Venkman had reached such a point, for everyone else was busily doing something; they all had missions no matter how small that kept them occupied, gave them purpose however temporary that made facing the future seem worthwhile. Peter had not found a purpose to cling to until he could find his emotional feet again and was lost under the tide of his own reaction to Ray's onrushing loss. Until he did find some task he believed was genuinely useful, he would remain miserable and unable to help Ray or himself. From bitter experience Winston knew he could not provide an answer for anyone else, and it saddened him to have so little to offer his friend. 

"I'm sorry, man," was all he could say, knowing it was not nearly sufficient to convey his own wish to help and sense of uselessness at not having the answer so desperately needed. Sliding off the desk, he laid one hand on Peter's shoulder, trying to impart some measure of comfort with his touch before he left Peter to his solitary contemplations. 

* * *

"Guys, I was thinking," Ray announced at lunch. 

"Did it hurt much or did you stop in time?" Peter asked curiously. 

"It hurt a little," Ray replied in all seriousness. "But then I had an idea." 

"Beginner's luck," Peter mumbled, then subsided at the glare Winston shot him. Egon ignored the by-play, eyes never leaving his plate though he showed no other interest in its contents. 

"Go on, tell us," Zeddemore encouraged Ray. 

"Well, I was thinking since I don't have much time left I should do something to help other people while I can. Something charitable and good, you know, like those visits to the children's wards we do." Looking hopefully around at his friends, he tried hard to ignore the haunted, desolate expressions his words had brought to their faces. "Couldn't we spend the next couple days doing that sort of stuff instead of nothing at all?" 

"I think that would be really nice," Winston agreed, a slight glitter in his eyes. Egon nodded without looking up from the food he hadn't touched. 

Peter's breath caught for a moment, then he said with forced gaiety, "It's that consequences thing again, Ray. If we go out and make public appearances, sooner or later you're going to have one of your attacks in front of a crowd. It scares us when those things hit you, think how it will affect an audience." 

"But...." Ray protested. 

Gently, Peter continued, "Some tabloid scum will start hounding us and trying to get pictures, trying to find out what's wrong with you, digging up the hospital records from when you were blind, and we'll have that Cynthia Crawford and her crew on the doorstep trying to get an interview before long." 

Winston's expression had closed up, but he cleared his throat and put in, "As much as I hate to admit he's right, he's right. We don't think of it much when we're not out on a job, but to a lot of people in this town everything we do is newsworthy." 

Crestfallen, Ray's expression hovered on the edge of a pout. "It's not fair," he muttered, then brightened and asked, "Can't we just tell them it's none of their business?" For a minute he let the incredulous stare Peter gave him and the muffled coughing fit that overcame Winston go on, then he broke into a brilliant, sunny smile. "Just kidding." He cast a hopeful glance at Egon, but the physicist barely managed a faint smile in return. 

Peter rolled his eyes and broke into an exasperated chuckle. "You...." he threatened lightly, aiming a punch at Ray's shoulder but not letting the mock blow land. 

Sobering, the brief twinkle gone from his eyes, Ray asked seriously, "Then will you guys do something for me? After I'm gone, I mean?" 

Equally seriously they all nodded, even Egon meeting his gaze when he looked around the table. "Anything at all, man, you know that," Winston told him with quiet intensity. 

Ray swallowed hard. "Do some good stuff for me. Something that will help somebody who really needs it, or make the world a little bit better than it was before. That's what I want my monument to be." Pausing, he thought of perhaps making out a list of causes he would like furthered, but another glance around the table dissuaded him immediately. His friends knew him better than anyone else in the world and he could trust them to know what he would have liked to see done. There was no need to tell them, for they would always hold him in their memories, remembering his wish and doing in his name what would have pleased him to do himself. In their eyes he could see the love and sadness they all felt, and the promise neither he nor his wish would ever be forgotten for as long as they lived. Abruptly his own eyes started to fill and he lurched to his feet. "Thanks, guys," he managed hoarsely, then stumbled from the room. 

All three rose to follow him, catching up with him in the TV room where he had gotten no further than the couch. Sitting there, struggling to regain his breath against the uneven heaving of his chest, he raised his head as Peter sat next to him on one side, Egon on the other, and Winston settled delicately on the coffee table in front of him, reaching out to take his hands. "Sorry," he sniffed, leaning into Peter's side as the psychologist put an arm around him. 

On the other side, Egon also wrapped an arm around the shaken occultist's back and murmured, "It's all right, Raymond, we understand." 

Sighing, beginning to relax in the comfort of their closeness, Ray was taken unprepared by the first tremor. Bowing forward, he let go of Winston's hands and curled into himself with a whispered, "Oh, damn," as the pain swept over him. On either side Peter and Egon tightened their holds on him, as if they could protect him with their presence. Wracked by the agony coursing through his body, Ray was only peripherally aware of them, yet the strength of their dual embrace did help a little for it gave him a haven outside his own mind in which to seek retreat. 

Watching helplessly, Winston gently smoothed Ray's hair, then rose, heading for the kitchen to get a cool, damp cloth to bathe Ray's face with when the attack passed. When he returned only seconds later, he paused in the doorway, noticing for the first time the difference in the way Egon and Peter were reacting. On Ray's right side Peter leaned close, his body as tense as if he were feeling the pain that made Ray shudder and moan, his attention fixed solely and completely on the man in his arms. The psychologist's face held a fierce expression compounded of concern and anger, admixed with hints of fear and grief. 

To the left, Egon also held Ray tightly, but his face was turned away and his eyes squeezed shut. From the way each tremor that shook Ray brought an extra flinch from him, Winston could tell the physicist was not shutting out Ray's pain but was feeling it in full and adding to it his own measure of self-inflicted turmoil. The lines engraved around his mouth spoke of grief and guilt, but not of anger. The closest thing in Egon to the rage radiating from Peter was a bitter contempt directed at himself, visible only in the particular way his brow creased. Had he not known them for so long Winston would not have been able to make such a fine determination, but as he stood there comparing the two men, seen without any artificial calm covering their emotions, it was obvious. 

In less than another minute the spasm was over and Ray went limp between his two supporters, gasping like a beached fish and shivering with exhausted reaction. As Winston stepped forward offering the damp cloth, Ray struggled weakly to a sitting position, assisted with gentle solicitousness by Egon and Peter. Tipping his head back, Stantz regarded the ceiling through tear-blurred eyes and whispered, "Thanks." 

"How often?" Peter asked. Although he no longer held Stantz tightly within the circle of his embrace, one arm was still cushioning Ray's shoulders from behind. Accepting the rag from Winston, he laid it over Ray's forehead, 

"Almost every other hour. I had two this morning," Ray answered, too wrung out to bother trying to make light of his condition. 

"I have to get back to work," Egon said abruptly. Despite his haste, he disengaged his arm from behind Ray's back with delicate care. "I'll be upstairs if you need me." Rising, he hesitated, and Winston saw him abort a half-formed gesture as if for a moment he had been going to reach down and tousle Ray's hair before leaving. Neither Peter nor Ray noticed it, and none of them saw the physicist for the rest of the afternoon. 

* * *

_If I knew I were dying, what would be the one thing I would want to get before it happened?_ Back down in his office, Peter sat back in his chair, feet propped on his desk. But for the line of concentration etched between his fine-drawn brows he might have been napping, a not-unheard-of occurrence. All the same he was not asleep this time, he was trying as hard as he could to put himself mentally in Ray's position and finding it wasn't an easy or comforting place to be. That wasn't surprising. What bothered him more was that of all of Ray's friends, he, Peter, was finding it most difficult to spend this time they had left together doing something useful, something that could make Ray's time easier or more enjoyable. 

Up in the lab Egon was no doubt slaving over some last-ditch attempt at a cure, because the one thing he could do for Ray was to try as hard as he could to make things right again. Somewhere else in the house, Winston was being himself: solid, practical, reliable, and firmly in tune with reality no matter what distraction was thrown his way. Ray seemed to find Winston's company the most relaxing and comforting, and Peter honestly admitted the reason was Winston's very calm, normal demeanor which so contrasted with Egon's tense preoccupation and his own taut snappishness. Out front Janine was taking calls, turning aside curiosity and the press of their job to give them the time and space they needed. And what had the amazing Dr. Venkman done? Well, this morning he'd tried to drive Janine away, and then he complained to Winston, and so far this afternoon he had sat on his butt. Not the sort of day full of accomplishments he could really feel proud of. 

So he'd taken them to dinner last night. Big deal. For a lifetime of friendship this was the best he could do in return? It was too late to get a Nobel nomination pushed through the committee, and Ray already had at least one each of all the other major awards given in their field, either on his own or in conjunction with Egon. Cars, boats, houses, trips, anything else that came to mind was immediately discarded as an unsatisfactory answer to the question. The flaw in his thinking became obvious and he rephrased the question correctly. _If I were Ray and I knew I were dying, what would be the one thing I would want before it happened?_

_What makes Ray happy?_ A brief twist of smile crossed his face. _What doesn't?_ But what could be obtained in a short period of time and presented to Ray that would bring the most joy to the time he had left? The answer that occurred to him was almost as painful as it was indisputable. A pet. Ray was always bringing home strays, whether they were alley cats or ghosts, and his ability and desire to take care of any small, helpless thing that needed him seemed endless. 

The crease between his brows grew deeper and was joined by other, smaller lines. What if he did go find a pet for Ray? Dog, cat, monkey or nether entity, it would only have Ray as a master for a few days. Ray would worry about what was going to happen to it after he was gone, and once that day came, the remaining ghostbusters would have the job of taking care of something they had never really wanted themselves. Caring for that pet would become an unavoidable burden undertaken in Ray's memory but would remind them everyday of the one they loved and had lost with the power only a living thing can muster. No, he wouldn't be doing any of them, including Ray, a favor by bringing another creature into their circle to share the loss. 

What, then? Something simple, for the things that brought the most delight to Ray were the plain, beautiful, fun things life had to offer. And what is more simple and beautiful in time of distress than the love and support of one's friends? Peter's brow cleared and his eyes opened, the thought coming to him with such brilliant and sudden clarity he nearly glanced upward to see the light bulb. Only the day before Ray had told him what would be missed most, how distressed he was at losing not just life but the friends he had made and come to love so well. How could anyone have sat for so long agonizing over what would make his friend happiest when he had already been told in no uncertain terms? 

Dropping his feet to the floor and standing up, he stretched his back out and then went in search of Ray. Finding him and Winston in the library working on something, Peter forbore to interrupt them and stood quietly in the doorway for a minute merely taking in the sight of Ray alive, as a man who had been lost in the desert would take in the cool water of an oasis well. For the first time he noticed the physical toll blindness and stress had taken on Ray. Although he wasn't underweight by normal standards, the rapid loss of weight over the past few weeks gave him a gaunt appearance in Peter's eyes. Unnatural thinness only made the young engineer look ill, new shadows under his eyes emphasizing the paleness of his skin. Even Ray's habitually upbeat demeanor had changed slightly; he wasn't overtly depressed but there was a sadness lingering in his eyes and slowing his movements, making him seem more deliberate than he had ever been. Without the buoyant spirit which had always characterized him, Ray seemed smaller and the space around him dimmer for the lack of his exuberance. 

In the time it took Peter to make his observations, he heard enough of what passed between Ray and Winston to realize with a horrible, sinking feeling in his stomach that what they were doing was making up a list of Ray's personal belongings and assigning new owners for everything. All the pride in what he had come to do was lost in grief as it was made unbearably clear to him why he was doing it. Taking a deep, shaking breath, he shoved the grief far into a back recess of his consciousness and stepped forward, drawing attention to his presence. Holding both hands clasped behind his back, Peter caroled, "Oh, Ray, I brought you a present!" 

When he first had seen Peter, Ray's face had lit up with pleasure. At the announcement of a gift, his expression didn't exactly change, but a subtle shading of delight went out of it. "Why don't you hold on to it for me?" he asked kindly, displaying none of his usual enthusiasm for finding out what the present might be. 

"If I did that, people would look at me strange and I might even get arrested." Ray's expression changed from politely curious to actively quizzical. "Me," Peter clarified unhelpfully. 

The brightness returning to his mood as inconspicuously as it had gone, Ray cocked his head and waited for the rest of the explanation. At the minuscule but discernible perking up of the occultist's attitude, Peter knew his intuition had been right. Ray was far more pleased by spending time with his friends than he was excited by the idea of receiving any sort of gift. Sidling closer and closer to Ray, keeping his hands behind his back, the psychologist hummed nonchalantly, pretending indifference to his friends' curiosity. 

Finally, Ray could stand the suspense no longer and exclaimed, "What is it?!" Leaning to peer around Peter's side to see what was being withheld, he was caught by surprise. 

Bringing his empty hands around, Peter mercilessly tickled Ray's exposed sides, then answered the question. "Me!" he crowed, catching Ray up in a close embrace. "I give you me to hang out with, to act as a source of entertainment and enlightenment, to bring you whatever you should desire at the slightest of your whims, and to tell all your troubles and thoughts to." The crushing hug he received in return expressed more gratitude than any effusive thanks he had ever gotten for the most lavish of gifts. 

Clapping him on the shoulder from behind, Winston said, "I knew you'd think of something right." 

Over his shoulder, Peter stuck his tongue out at Zeddemore. Letting go of Ray, he stepped back and asked facetiously, "You like your present, then?" 

"I love it," Ray replied with such warm sincerity Peter came as close to blushing as he ever had. 

* * *

That evening after dinner Ray wandered away from the table as Peter and Egon began to clean up with Winston's help. They refused his offer to assist, pointing out there wasn't room by the sink for another body, and he reluctantly acquiesced. Standing in the rec room and not feeling like watching anything on TV at the moment, he let his gaze track aimlessly over the bookshelves lining the back of the room. Then his eyes focused and he moved with purpose toward one of the shelves. 

Their collection of photo albums took up several feet of shelf space along the bottom row. A couple of the books were full of pictures from the days the three senior partners had spent at Columbia, and the rest were an intermittent pictorial chronicle of their adventures and recreational interludes since forming the company together. Ray pulled the first couple albums out of the shelf and sat on the couch with them. Slowly, he paged through the first book, his melancholy lifting as happy memories triggered by the photos began to fill his mind and overwhelm his unwilling preoccupation with the current problem facing him. Years of his life, certainly the happiest ones, were represented by those records of his association and friendship with Peter and Egon. All those years and the fun he'd had with his friends came back as the pictures reminded him of this family he had found himself part of and come to love as much as he had his parents. 

"What'cha doin'?" Winston asked from the doorway. 

Ray looked up with a smile. "I was just looking through our old albums. I'd almost forgotten some of the wild stuff we did at Columbia but Egon always took pictures." He grinned and flipped back to the first pages of the album he was holding. "Like this one. He always claimed he was doing it to create a scientific record but I think he just loved to catch Peter in embarrassing situations." 

Sitting down beside him, Winston leaned against Ray's shoulder and looked at the photo he was pointing to. He blinked, then leaned closer, staring, before collapsing backward laughing so hard he ended up holding his sides. When he calmed slightly and sat back up, he got another glimpse of the picture and tried to contain himself but ended up laughing helplessly all over again. 

As Winston chortled next to him, Ray's fond smile of remembrance widened until he too began to chuckle. He'd looked at the picture earlier and remembered the incident, but until Winston reacted to it he hadn't really thought about how truly ridiculous it was and how hysterically funny it had been at the time. The photograph captured perfectly the expression of outraged umbrage on Peter's face when Egon had pulled out the camera. Soon he was laughing as hard as Winston, the album nearly sliding from his lap so he had to grab for it. That initiated another round of hearty amusement. 

"Oh, that's priceless," Winston finally gasped, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "How did you guys ever talk him into that?" 

"Talk who into what?" Peter asked innocently from the kitchen doorway, and his appearance sent both Ray and Winston into renewed gales of hilarity. When he balled his fists on his hips and glared at them, they pointed and whooped until the album lay forgotten on the floor and the two of them were sprawled exhausted on the sofa, still chuckling weakly. "Now can I get an explanation?" Peter asked plaintively. 

Hoisting themselves upright, Ray and Winston elbowed each other a few times as the album was retrieved and presented to Peter. His eyes widened as he saw the indicated photo, then he tipped his head back and yelled, "EGON!" 

"What?" Egon asked from directly behind him, causing the psychologist to twitch with startlement. "There's no need to shout, I'm right here." 

"Don't sneak up on me!" Peter thrust the open album under Egon's nose and said through gritted teeth, "I think there is a reason to shout. Didn't you tell me you'd destroyed all the prints of this?" 

With a slightly puzzled look Egon accepted the book and peered at the page, adjusting the angle of his glasses with one hand. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth and his eyes sparkled with sudden mischief. He cleared his throat in a deep rumble and met Peter's glare with a clear, guiltless expression. "I did destroy all the prints," he said. "I simply never destroyed the original." 

"Then I will!" Peter grabbed for the album but Egon was faster, snapping it closed and holding it out of reach with one hand while blocking Peter's grab with his bent right arm. Grappling the physicist with one hand and reaching for the book, Peter nearly made up in determination what he lacked in length of arm. Before he could swarm up Egon's body like climbing a tree, he was mobbed from behind by the other two and pulled away by both arms despite his active squirming. "Lemme go!" he panted. "He promised me, now make him tear it up!" 

"Come on, Pete," Winston cajoled. "It's a priceless piece of history, you can't destroy it now." 

"Think of future generations," Ray added helpfully from the other side. 

"I am," Peter growled. "If you don't keep my future generations from seeing that, you won't have any future generations." 

"Really, Peter," Egon protested with a grin. "If you cannot be swayed by the value of preserving history, try to consider our financial security. Should we ever run desperately short of operating funds, this one photo could guarantee up to a month's worth of expenses getting paid. It was my duty as an investor to maintain the resource intact." 

"Agggghhhhghghg," Peter managed, exerting himself futilely against the two men holding him back. By main force of superior weight he was drawn away from his intended victim until the three of them fell onto the couch, Peter contained between the other two men. For all his wriggling and snarling, his struggles lacked the power of any serious conviction and in fact he was noticeably favoring the side on which Ray held him, as if afraid to trigger one of the attacks by straining him. 

All his consideration couldn't spare Ray the inevitable, and minutes later he was curled and moaning as he suffered through another bout. As they had earlier that day, Ray's three best friends surrounded and supported him through the worst. Trying to soothe him with murmured encouragement and reassuring caresses, they could provide no real surcease from the pain but their loving presence made the physical agony easier to bear. Shaking with reaction and the sudden exhaustion which always followed the pain, Ray lay limp in their combined embrace for a time afterward. Eyes closed, his ragged breathing slowly returning to normal, the slight smile of contentment at the corners of his mouth very out of place. 

Smoothing Ray's hair with one hand, Peter trailed the back of his fingers down the side of Ray's cheek and asked, "What are you smiling at, oh Most Silly But Beloved One?" 

The tiny smile widened and Stantz opened heavy-lidded eyes, blinking traces of saltwater away. "Just being silly," he mumbled, tipping his head to lay his temple against Peter's shoulder. When Egon let go of him from the other side as if to pull away, Ray feebly grabbed for the front of his shirt, fingers tangling in the soft, pale blue material. Lifting himself with an effort from resting against Peter, Ray shifted toward his other side until his weight leaned on Egon. "Don't go yet," he sighed. 

Heartbreaking tenderness filled Egon's eyes and he gently tightened his arms around Ray, laying his cheek on the fine auburn hair resting against his shoulder. His lips parted as if to speak but the words caught in his throat and he swallowed them back painfully. Eyes stinging with unshed tears, he hugged Ray to his chest, not caring if the others saw how the lines of his face deepened with inexpressible sorrow. 

Watching him from Ray's other side, Peter's expression softened, eyes beginning to sparkle too brightly in sympathy with Egon's grief. This time it was Venkman who turned away, his jaw tightening as he fought for control. The movement woke Ray out of the comfort of Egon's embrace and he stirred, beginning to turn toward Peter again. 

Leaning forward to divert Stantz long enough for Peter to pull himself together, Winston inquired solicitously, "You want to go upstairs and rest?" as he handed over the glass of water he'd brought from the kitchen. His glance at Peter was carefully neutral, but he received a shaky smile of gratitude for his timely intervention. 

Accepting the glass gratefully and drinking off half its contents, Ray shook his head and reached for the album laying on the floor. Forestalling the stretch, Peter scooped the book up and handed it to him. "No, thanks. I'd rather finish looking through this." He gave the half-full glass back to Winston and opened the album, glancing around at his friends. "Can we stay here for a while?" 

"We can do anything you want," Egon answered for them all. Beckoning Winston to sit next to him, he made room and the four of them sat squashed together on the couch looking over the pictures in Ray's lap. Peter grumbled briefly about being crushed in the corner but made no attempt to leave, instead laying his left arm around Ray's shoulders and anchoring them both in place. For a moment his hand clasped Egon on Ray's other side, feeling the tenseness in the muscle above the well-defined collarbone. 

Beaming as if he had been given a wonderful present, Ray began to page through the collection of photographs again. Coming almost immediately upon another highly amusing record of an incident from their earliest ghost-hunting days, he pointed it out to Winston. Peter interrupted with his side of the story while Egon interjected comments less scientifically inclined than usual regarding the way things had gone. Soon a vigorous three-way argument-cum-explanation was in progress with Winston being called upon from all sides to arbitrate in different directions of favor. All four men were enjoying themselves and the company of friends immensely, the looming tragedy in their midst temporarily forgotten. 

Toward the end of the volume was a set of Christmas photos taken during the first holiday season after Peter had finagled their initial research grant. In celebration that year Ray had decided, after a marathon viewing of far too many classic seasonal films, to forsake the American turkey for dinner in favor of the more traditional goose. His pursuit of authenticity led to a debacle of plucking, cleaning, and experimental roasting which had been faithfully recorded by Egon's camera. But the hapless goose's adventures were only secondary to the miserable time Peter had, having allowed himself to be drawn into participating by Ray's enthusiasm and the promise of a really exceptional dinner. The final shot showed the proud cook presiding over the carving of the successful project, while at the table next to him Peter's expression was a candid combination of amusement, resignation, affectionate exasperation, and reluctant delight. The goose had been delicious. 

"We could do the same thing this Christmas," Ray decided positively. A sudden, awful silence followed his idea and he bit his lip, wishing the words back too late. Glancing up, he saw the strained whiteness of Peter's face and caught the flash of guilty horror in Egon's eyes. Even Winston was frozen for a minute in shocked remembrance that the good times they had all been recalling were over for one of their number. "I'm sorry," Ray blurted, trying to salvage the mood of happy nostalgia which had filled the room seconds ago. 

Egon stood up abruptly, his back so rigid the movement seemed graceless. "I have to get back to work," he mumbled without looking at the rest of the group still on the couch. By the time he reached the top of the spiral stairs he was nearly running. 

"I think I'll go see if he needs any help," Winston said with strained tactfulness. The sofa shifted as his weight left it, but Ray didn't look up to watch his departure. 

His face set in an impassive mask in which only his eyes showed the grief he felt, Peter remained partly because of his promise to be Ray's constant support but mostly because he could not bear to leave Ray alone with his thoughts. While Peter longed to find some uninhabited part of the house and spend an hour or two breaking things, there would be years of time for that later but only a few, precious hours of companionship with this friend remained to him and he had no intention of wasting any more of them in self-indulgence. 

"I wish we could all be happy again," Ray said forlornly, eyes downcast at the picture of holiday fun. 

"Me too," Peter agreed quietly, and meant it even more fervently than Ray had. 

* * *

_Peter didn't know how the argument had started, all he was sure of was that the disagreement hadn't been over anything genuinely important at first. Whatever had started the fight no longer mattered for it had progressed beyond a small spat and become hideously vicious. Practically incoherent with anger, he screamed his frustrations, disappointments, and hatreds at his father, spewing rage built up over a lifetime and never released. Memories of loneliness and rejection couched in utter fury at the pure injustice of how he had been treated poured from him and he heaped it all on the head of the one man who had done him the most wrong in all his life. Through it all, his father acted as unconcerned and uncaring as he always had, returning casual insults to every fiery accusation and driving Peter more wild with need to make some impression, to get his point across once and for all and be acknowledged as the injured party._

Dragging himself forcibly awake, Peter rolled over on his back and stared blearily up into the darkness, trying to banish the mental images from the dream. His stomach roiled with tension as if he had really been engaged in that fight, and shreds of righteous anger still tangled in his mind with the shame and upset of remembering the way he had blown up. _I'd say we have some abandonment issues here, wouldn't you, Doctor?_

Wondering if he was the only one who couldn't sleep, he raised his head and scanned the bedroom, trying to interpret the shadows and sounds around him to determine how well the others were doing at getting a night's rest. To his right he was unsurprised to find Egon's bed empty, still neatly made. Squinting at the clock on the low table between their beds, he found the time was well past two in the morning, which meant Spengler was pulling yet another all-nighter in the lab. Peter ruthlessly suppressed the instant hope Egon's work would provide a cure to save Ray's life. It hurt less to accept the worst than to have hope and be disappointed, and he already had too many mental wounds to deliberately torture himself further. Besides, if there had been any hope to be had Egon would have said so, and so far he had remained utterly and tellingly silent about his research. No, there was nothing to the long nights of work the physicist put himself through but an unwillingness to admit defeat when the stakes were so terribly high. 

Across the open area that ran the length of the room, Winston snored in his reassuring, regular baritone. Everything about Winston had been reassuring lately and Peter was both awed by and grateful for the immense reserve of strength and wisdom their fourth member was provided with. Though Winston loved Ray as well as the other two did, he still somehow seemed to be coping with the whole situation better than the rest of them. It shouldn't have been surprising, Peter reflected, for the main qualities Zeddemore had brought to the team were calm reasonableness and staunch dependableness. Perfectly capable and entirely willing to point out the idiocy or suicidal nature of any plan the three scientists could concoct, he also invariably trusted their judgment and supported whatever course they undertook. Perhaps, Peter mused, when they had formed the company and advertised for another person to assist them any fairly intelligent, courageous, decent man could have filled the bill as well as Winston had. But none of those others, he was also sure, could have joined their small circle of chosen family and so effortlessly become someone they needed and relied on as much as they always had each other. 

From the bed next to Winston's, Ray's breathing was quietly regular but even as Peter listened it changed pitch and frequency and he heard with perfect clarity the little gasp of pain with which Stantz awoke. Up and across the room before Ray had finished curling in on himself, Peter slid his arms around Ray's chest and lifted him off the mattress, pulling him up against himself. Holding the shivering body close, he offered the only support he could give, forbearing even to murmur the words of reassurance they both knew were lies. 

The bout seemed to go on forever, and Ray relapsed into a semi-conscious state halfway toward sleep after it was over. Laying him gently back down and tucking the covers around him, Peter debated waking Stantz to find out how he was doing, but rejected the idea since it was painfully obvious what condition he was in. There was nothing to be learned by breaking his rest with pointless questions. There was someone else already awake who needed to be asked one very important question, however, so rather than returning to his own bed Peter stalked across the hall and pushed open the unlatched laboratory door, squinting into the lighted room. Closing the door behind himself and letting his eyes become accustomed to the light, he found Egon engrossed in studying something through his microscope. 

"Well, have you got it yet?" Peter asked, making no effort to hide the fact he was depressed, angry, and tired beyond words. If Egon had any chance of producing a cure for Ray, Peter had to know about it for he was running out of other reserves to draw on to keep himself going. 

Startled at the sound, not having heard anyone enter, Egon's back stiffened defensively but he didn't turn around. "Got what?" he asked cautiously, but it was clear he knew precisely what Peter was inquiring about. Busying himself over the rack of samples occupying the bench, he wouldn't meet Peter's eyes. 

"Don't play coy with me," Venkman snapped back, unreasonably aggravated by the transparent evasion. "A cure for Ray. Don't tell me you've been up here day and night for the last week trying to improve the suction on our traps." 

"No, I haven't." Setting aside another microscope slide, he reached for the next one. It clattered on the rack for a second as he lifted it, betraying the tremor of exhaustion and tension running through his whole body. 

"You realize if this doesn't work, you'll have missed spending most of his last few days alive with him." If Egon had no confidence in the possibility of a cure, would he risk missing the last hours he could spend with someone he loved? Or was the physicist so driven he couldn't admit there was no hope even if it cost him those last days of contact with his friend? How much could Peter dare to hope based on Egon's commitment to the effort? Was there a real chance of a cure or was there only the obsessed striving of a man who could not let himself give up the attempt while a dying friend still breathed? 

There was no reassurance to be found in Egon's reaction to the overly cruel question. Peter's harsh, reproachful tone struck no spark of responsive anger or attempted vindication from the tall blond. Instead his shoulders sagged further as if admitting defeat and he responded only with a quietly pained, "I know." 

"Don't you care?" Peter demanded incredulously, consciously pushing at the shell of resignation. 

Turning on him furiously, Egon pinned him with a glare, despair flashing into hostility with incredible speed. "You're a fine one to talk, Dr. Venkman. What have you done to make my job any easier?" Jabbing a stiff finger at his own chest and then at Peter's for emphasis, he snarled, "I've been busting my butt on this and all you've done is try to make it harder for me to concentrate." 

"So you're in there after all," Venkman observed with disconcerting calm. "I was beginning to think I'd have to check the basement for pods." 

"Then I suggest you go do so. Now." Egon said coldly, his temper in check by the smallest of margins. "I have work to do." 

"What work, Egon? Are you making any progress?" Venkman asked insistently. 

Egon's passion died as quickly as it had flared and his shoulders slumped a bit. "I have work to do," the physicist repeated, but he sounded defensive and a bleak lack of hope dulled his eyes. 

From years of association Peter knew if Egon had been on the trail of something promising he would have said so, or at least announced his preference to explain after he had all the details worked out. But from Spengler's silence there wasn't even enough information for him to decline to speculate, and Peter's disappointment washed through him like a chilly wave drawing him to an undertow of hopeless depression. "Yeah, fine," he finally answered tonelessly. "You do that." 

Trudging to the door, Peter paused half over the threshold for a moment, his head turned over his shoulder to watch the tired way Egon rubbed at his eyes before hunching back over the microscope. "Don't you want to see him while he's still alive?" Peter asked curiously. 

"More than anything," Egon whispered. He raised haunted, bloodshot eyes from his work. "I can't quit trying. I have to find the answer. I have to." 

"And if there isn't an answer to be found?" 

"I can't believe that. There is always an answer." 

"Sometimes it just takes too long to find." It was the closest to absolution he could come, born as much from weariness as active compassion. 

"Ray doesn't have any longer." Egon's voice cracked, and he paused to clear his throat before deliberately meeting Peter's eyes. "The serum will be ready tomorrow afternoon." 

* * *

The attacks Ray suffered had become frequent and lengthy enough that shortly after breakfast he retreated to the TV room sofa, preferring it to the admission of defeat returning to bed would have been. Occurring at random intervals, he might have only ten minutes or several hours between those pain-wracked episodes, but it was impossible to do almost anything in the time he had free except try to prepare for the next. Each bout of agony left him weaker and less able to fight the next even with the comfort of Peter's presence bolstering his spirit. Idly transponder surfing between fits, Ray cared less about what was on the TV than for the warm arm around his shoulders and the sure knowledge that strength would stay beside him without failing. 

Pressed into useful service, Slimer shuttled supplies from the kitchen. It kept him occupied a fair amount of the time, since he had to make so many trips before he could get as far as the couch with a complete offering of whatever had been requested. 

"Six?" Peter asked, blatant disbelief coloring his expression. "How can you say six? Ten at least, and it could be over a dozen." 

Ray chewed his lip in thought, sending a sidelong glance at the spud bobbing in the air near the couch. "OK, more than six," he conceded. "But no more than eight. I'll bet on eight." 

"Sucker," Peter said fondly. "Winston, you heard him, he said eight." 

"That he did," Winston agreed from his position at the other end of the sofa. Not in constant physical contact with Ray as Venkman was, he still remained close enough to provide moral support and any other help that might be needed. "And he's not a sucker, he's just incurably optimistic." 

"Same thing," Peter muttered, and Ray poked him in the ribs. 

"What's your bet?" Winston asked, arching an eyebrow at them. 

"Eleven," Peter decided. "And I think that's too low. Five bucks says it's at least eleven." 

"Eleven it is, for a fiver. All bets are in. Slimer?" Perking up, Slimer drifted closer and saluted sloppily. Holding up the soup bowl they'd been dipping pistachios out of a few minutes ago, he instructed, "Go bring us this dish full of M&Ms." 

By noon, Ray owed Peter almost fifty dollars but neither of them was keeping track. 

* * *

As if by some arcane method they knew he was nearly ready to try one last time to save Ray's life, everyone in the firehouse had gravitated to Egon's lab. Even Ray had wandered up, bored with the TV and feeling almost energetic after two hours of rest free from any pain. It was no use asking them why they were there; Spengler knew they weren't aware of what had warned them any more than Peter could explain how he so often knew when the phone was going to ring. The phenomenon needed to be studied some day, but at the moment the physicist had more important priorities. 

"Janine, take Slimer downstairs and keep him occupied." Egon overrode her protest with a look that spoke too clearly of his own reservations regarding what he was about to try. "This may or may not work, but either way it will not be pleasant for Ray and I don't want him further upset by Slimer's hysterics. Please?" 

Reluctantly she nodded, swayed as much by the pleading note he couldn't keep out of his voice as she was by the logical consideration of the request. "Come on, Slimer," she said enticingly, only a hint of resentment still audible in her voice. "Wanna help me make popcorn?" 

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Grabbing her hand, oblivious to her grimace of distaste at his touch, Slimer tugged her toward the door, his interest in the proceedings already forgotten in the lure of food. 

"How can he still be hungry?" Peter demanded of no one in particular. "He ate seven pounds of M&Ms less than an hour ago!" 

Head turned over her shoulder as she went, Janine called, "Just make sure Ray gets better!" The look on Egon's face was not all that reassuring, but she put aside her fear with an effort and allowed Slimer to lead her away. 

Peter shut the door after her and leaned against it. "OK, now what?" 

"Now I inject the chelating compound." Lifting the syringe, Egon glanced around the lab's confines and frowned. "We ought to go over to the bedroom. Ray, I think you should be lying down for this. The process is likely to be painful and there's no point in aggravating it by having you fall off a chair during the reaction." 

"Does it have to be injected?" Ray asked weakly. "I hate getting shots." 

"I'm sorry, but that's the surest way to get it to the target area. I haven't compensated for what your digestive system would do to the chemical so the effectiveness would be impaired by administering it orally." 

"It would also probably make you horribly sick to your stomach. Remember, we're dealing with something the Evil Genius here cooked up in the lab." Peter's voice held only a hint of the warmth usually present in his teasing of the physicist. Levering himself away from the door, he opened it and led the way across the hall. 

Detouring through the bathroom first, Winston joined them next to Ray's bed where the occultist was already seated and handed Egon the alcohol and cotton balls he had picked up. With a grateful smile, the physicist took them and swabbed at the side of Ray's neck over the artery. Under his breath he said quietly into Ray's ear, "Are you sure you want to try this? I can't guarantee it will work, but I am almost certain it will be an unpleasant experience." 

"What do I have to lose if it doesn't work?" Ray asked with fatalistic practicality. "If it works, it doesn't matter to me how unpleasant it is." His head canted to the side to allow access to his neck, he smiled warmly at Egon. "Besides, with as much time as you've spent on it, how can it fail?" 

Carefully, Egon made the injection, then gently pushed Ray prone and stepped back. Picking up the PKE meter he had also brought with him, he aimed it at Ray and began scanning him closely. 

For a moment nothing happened, then Ray convulsed violently on the bed, a choked cry escaping him. The next cry was louder, closer to a scream, and his hands flew to his head, first pressing and then tearing at his temples. Winston and Peter both dived for him, each grabbing one arm and pulling his hands away to the sides. They anchored him from either side as he twisted between them, his back arching and bucking. Hoarse screams were ripped from his throat and the two holding onto him were hard pressed to keep him on top of the narrow bed as his contortions wrenched at their combined weight. It seemed like he was suspended in an eternity of howling, sweating pain before his struggles grew progressively weaker until at last he lay still and pale, his breathing as rapid as if he just finished a terribly long race for his life. It was impossible to tell by looking at him whether he had won that race. 

Peter slowly stood up, his legs so weak they barely supported his weight at first. "This had better have been worth it," he ground out. 

Leaning against the wardrobe looking faintly sick, Egon watched from an enforced distance as if he were a stranger. But no stranger's eyes would have been as stricken as his were, and no stranger's body could have been so strung with tension at what he saw. The PKE meter was clutched like a talisman in both hands, but no amount of concentration on it had been able to spare him from hearing and knowing what his concoction had put Ray through. 

"Well?" Winston said as he too rose, as shaky with reaction as Peter. Looking to Egon, he asked, "How's he doing?" 

Studying the PKE meter with renewed intensity, Egon blanched and caught his breath, letting it back out in a low hissing sigh that trembled. With a sharp movement he shut the meter off and pushed the little antennae back into the main body of it. Head bowed, he let his arms fall back to his side but the hand holding the small device was still clearly shaking despite the way his knuckles whitened with the force of his grip. 

"It didn't work?" Peter's voice was smooth and normally pitched, as if the answer meant no more to him than knowing who had won the women's luge silver in the 1986 Olympics. 

Egon shook his head mutely, and when he finally looked up at Peter there was an infinite wealth of anguish in his eyes. "The contamination is still present and active." 

"You put him through that for nothing?" This time Peter was yelling, his tone so high he was virtually screaming. He swung his right arm backward, cocking his fist for a blow. 

"Hey, lay off, Pete." Winston pushed in front of him, grabbing his upraised arm. "Socking Egon is not going to help anything. He's as upset about this as you are, you know, you're not the only one who's hurting here." 

Sullenly Peter jerked his arm away from Winston's grip. "Yeah? He's got a real strange way of showing it." 

"Don't you?" Winston asked very softly with a toss of his head to the bed where Ray still lay, helpless tears in his eyes as he watched his best friends fight. 

Though his tense stance didn't relax, Peter lightened his demeanor. The strain of suppressing his anger was so clear he might as well not have made the effort; the mask of calm he tried on fooled no one. "I'm sorry," he said more softly to Ray. "Seeing you go through that put me on edge." 

"I thought it would work," Egon said forlornly. "It almost worked." 

That reminder of failure was more than Peter could take, and he turned furiously on the physicist. "You bastard!" he yelled in Egon's face. There was clearly more he intended to say in that vein, but he caught sight of the reaction on Ray's face and instead abruptly flung himself toward the door and out of the room. 

"Egon?" Ray husked shakily from where he lay. 

Going to one knee on the floor beside his bed, Egon reached out, his touch a silent apology as he pushed the sweat-dampened bangs back from Ray's forehead. "What can I do for you?" he asked, his voice breaking with tenderness. 

"You were right," he whispered faintly. "I would have fallen off the chair." 

An unwilling smile lifted the corners of Egon's mouth. "I dare say you would have," he agreed, clasping Ray's nearer hand in both of his. "Rest now, sleep if you can. I'll come and check on you in an hour. Most of the reaction should wear off by then." 

His eyes already more than half shut, Ray nodded tiredly and gave up the fight to stay conscious. It was not long before his breathing evened out and he slipped into an exhausted nap. 

Egon remained holding his hand until Ray was fully asleep, not disengaging his grip until he was certain his withdrawal wouldn't wake the occultist. For a while he stood looking down at Ray, then seemed to shake himself out of his reverie and moved unseeingly back toward the lab. Not because there was anything more he could do there, but because he had nowhere else to go. 

"Was there any change at all?" Winston asked, having followed him across the hall. He had to repeat the question to break through Egon's introspection. 

As if surprised to find himself not alone, Egon glanced up and cleared his throat. "Yes, a small one. The contamination isn't gone, but it is lessened. I can't tell without more precise readings but I estimate the decrease is sufficient to give him another day, perhaps two before the concentration can build up again to the lethal level." 

Winston's eyes widened. "You got him more time?" he asked incredulously. "That's great! Why didn't you say so when Peter was sounding off?" 

"Because I failed," he whispered. "Ray still won't live. All I've given him is more pain and a little extra time to watch his death inexorably approaching." 

Winston shook his head vehemently. "I don't think he'll see it that way at all. You've doubled his life span when every minute is precious. That's a gift few men can give a friend, Egon, no matter what Peter thinks of what happened." Another thought struck him and he brightened. "If you were partially successful, why not brew up a couple more batches of that stuff? Taking it won't be pleasant but if it works a little each time, won't it eventually cure him?" 

For a moment Winston saw the bright glitter of tears behind the red-framed glasses. "How I wish I could make it work that way," Egon said hoarsely, then recovered his voice with an effort. "The compound chelated all the remaining available ectoplasm and now there's none left free in his system for the serum to react with. Only a chemical strong enough to strip away the slime already bonded to his cells would help, and every reaction of that strength would kill him immediately." Avoiding Winston's eyes, he admitted, "I've done all I can." It wasn't enough, and it was too late. 

"That's all anyone could ask of you," Winston pointed out, laying a hand on his shoulder. "It's not fair of Peter to demand more of you than you can do, and it's no more fair to make those demands yourself." Even as he said it he knew the admonition was going to be ignored. Tightening his grip, he offered, "I'll talk to Peter. Maybe I can make him see reason." 

The expression in Egon's eyes was as sad as it was skeptical, but he lifted his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug that neither supported nor denied Winston's suggestion. 

* * *

Once out of the lab Winston came to a halt. _What was I thinking? Nobody on this planet can make Peter Venkman see reason when he doesn't want to. Except for Egon, the one man he won't let close enough right now to do him any good._ Slumping a bit as he began to realize there really wasn't anything he could do, he slowed to a halt at the bedroom door. Although he knew Ray had to still be asleep, he poked his head through to check on him anyway, and missed hearing Janine come up the spiral stairs behind him. The touch of her small hand on his arm startled him slightly, but he was too wrung out by what had happened in the last half hour to even twitch at being surprised. 

"What happened?" she asked him, concern plain on her face. When he didn't answer immediately her worried look deepened and she shook him by the arm, her voice rising. "Is Ray all right? What's going on?" 

"Shhh," he warned her, then continued in a whisper, "He's asleep right now. It was even rougher than Egon figured, but it did some good." 

"Not quite enough," she guessed shrewdly. 

Winston shook his head regretfully, still keeping his voice low as he glanced over toward the closed lab door. "No, it didn't cure him. But Egon thinks it may have given him some extra time, maybe another day or two." 

"I was afraid it hadn't worked," she admitted. Her gaze followed his to the laboratory threshold, her eyes filling with sympathy and sorrow. "Peter came storming through the kitchen on his way downstairs. He didn't say anything to me and the expression on his face was awful." 

"He didn't react well to hearing the serum didn't cure Ray," Winston explained tactfully. 

"What about Egon?" she asked anxiously, moving a step away from him to cross the hallway toward the lab. "Is he OK?" 

Reaching out, he caught her hand before she could go any further. "Not good either, I think he needs some time to himself right now." What Egon needed was forgiveness, not unconditional acceptance he wouldn't be able to believe he deserved, but Winston didn't know how to explain that to Janine without hurting her feelings. She hesitated, casting a yearning gaze at the closed door, then reluctantly yielded to his judgment. "What'd you do with Slimer?" he asked, hoping to distract her from worrying about the physicist. 

"Told him to keep tabs on Peter. From a safe distance," she added quickly at the alarmed reaction. "Even Slimer could tell this is not the time to be pissing off Dr. V. But somebody ought to be watching out for him. I don't think he's paying attention to stuff around him right now." 

"You're absolutely right," Winston sighed. "Pete isn't paying attention to stuff inside him right now and even Slimer keeping a look out is better than letting him wander off on his own. That boy could hurt himself." 

"He'll be all right," Janine said positively. "Dr. Venkman's a survivor." 

"In that case, I'm worried about anyone he runs into," Zeddemore smiled, trying to lighten the conversation. 

Agreeing with a feeble smile of her own, Janine peered through the door to where the exhausted engineer snored softly and asked almost timidly, "Is it OK if I sit with Ray until Peter comes back up?" 

"I think he'd like that," Winston told her, and didn't know himself whether he meant Peter or Ray. 

* * *

Twilight was beginning to fall when Ray rejoined the world of the conscious. The bedroom curtain had been drawn while he slept and in the dimness of the room he could barely make out the dark shape sitting on Winston's bed, keeping silent watch over him. Yawning, he rubbed at his eyes and tried stretching. 

"How're you doing?" Peter asked softly, drawn from his solitary reflections by the movement. 

"Not so bad," Ray mumbled, sounding a bit surprised himself. "Tired and kinda sore, like I worked too hard at something, but not bad." 

"Feel like dinner?" 

Rolling onto his side, Ray grinned at him. "I don't know, what's dinner feel like?" 

Peter's teeth flashed in the gloom. "If you can say that, you're definitely feeling better. Gonna get up and come downstairs? Winston told me he was making cheesecake for dessert." 

"For cheesecake I'll come downstairs." Ray pushed himself upright, swinging his feet over the side of the bed and letting Peter pull him all the way to standing. Once he was on his feet he swayed for a moment, his equilibrium a bit shaky, and Peter steadied him with an arm around his waist. 

"You sure you want to try this?" he asked solicitously, but there was a thread of hope in his tone Ray didn't want to disappoint. 

"Not a problem," Stantz assured him cheerily. Pulling away from Peter's supporting hold, he crossed to the doorway and squinted out into the relatively brightly lit hallway. The fact that while he was ostensibly letting his eyes adjust he was also resting his weight against the door frame didn't seem like something he needed to share with his friend. 

It didn't matter how Ray attempted to disguise his weakness, Peter could see exactly what was going on and the reminder brought a twisting flash of grief to tighten his throat. Shoving the feeling aside, he joined his friend in the doorway and rested his elbow against Ray's shoulder. "I'm going to miss you," Peter said as casually as he could. 

Ray gave him a small, sad smile at that, then his expression became more intense as he saw into the pain locked behind the green eyes regarding him from so close. "Don't cry too long for me when I'm gone. I'll be your friend forever, no matter where we are." 

"It won't matter to me where we are either," Peter assured him, then had to clear his throat and turn away before he lost his composure completely. "Come on, let's go eat before we both turn into giant, starving mushballs." 

"Ugly fate," Ray agreed complacently, pulling his weight off the door frame and heading for the stairs at a slow but steady pace. When they reached the dining room, he cocked his head curiously at seeing the table set for four but one place still unoccupied. "Is Egon coming down for dinner?" 

"I think he'll be down later," Winston said, coming in behind them carrying a platter of grilled filet mignon steaks. "Last time I saw him he told me he wasn't very hungry." After the first few times they'd tried barbecuing inside and filled all three stories of the house with smoke, the grill had been banished to the rooftop for the summer months of its use. They all periodically grumbled about the inconvenience of carrying bags of charcoal and plates of food up all the stairs to go outside, but so far nobody had thought of a better place to grill and they all loved charcoal-cooked meat too much to give it up. 

The meal was nearly over before Ray asked again, a hint of disappointment in his voice, "Where's Egon?" 

Instead of answering, Peter's expression darkened and Winston threw a warning glare at the sullen psychologist. It was Slimer who answered, "Lab. Upstairs." From his drooling and hopeful stare at Ray's half-eaten piece of cheesecake it was easy to deduce the spud expected a reward, and Ray obliged, pushing his plate away with a sigh. 

"I wasn't that hungry anyway," Stantz said apologetically as Slimer descended and cleaned the plate with one pass of his enormous, ectoplasmic tongue. The other two men grimaced with contained disgust at the revolting noises which ensued. 

"If you want to go up and see Egon, we'll clean up here and see you in a little while," Winston suggested. "Won't we, Pete?" 

"Uh, yeah," Peter agreed, reaching down to surreptitiously rub the spot on his shin which had taken the brunt of a warning kick. "Just be careful on the stairs." 

Ray rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mother." As he got up from the table and left the room his movements were exaggerated and slow, as if playing up to the joke, but when he was out of sight in the other room he didn't lose the stiffness. His whole body felt like it had been beaten with a rubber hose and taking his time climbing the spiral stairs was his natural preference, not a concession to Peter's worry for his safety. 

Pausing for a brief rest at the top of the stairs, he moved forward and pushed into the lab. "Missed you at dinner," he greeted the physicist. 

"Ray, you're up," Egon exclaimed in an uncharacteristically banal statement of the obvious, though he evaded commenting on his absence from the dinner table by it. "How are you feeling?" 

"I don't know. Different, I think." Ray answered as he made his way across the room to lower himself onto the high stool next to the workbench. 

"How?" Egon asked cautiously, watching his progress intently. 

"I haven't had any more attacks for a while." He tilted his head in thought. "I haven't had any since you gave me that shot this afternoon. I've been really tired and stiff since I woke up but nothing hurts the way it did." He raised shining eyes to Egon, the hope in them bright. "Did it work after all?" 

Crushing that hope was the hardest thing Egon had ever done and he cursed himself as he said as gently as possible, "I'm sorry, Raymond, but I failed. The cure didn't work. This change in your symptoms is a side effect I had thought possible, but I hadn't dared hope it would work when the chelation wasn't complete." Meeting Ray's gaze squarely, he forced himself to say, "You will still die, but it will take a little longer and not hurt any more." 

Perhaps because Ray had accepted what was happening already, the news failed to crush him. Instead he latched onto the positive aspect. "You got me extra time?" 

Egon shifted uncomfortably at the open awe in Ray's face. "Sort of," he admitted, and felt compelled to quash the worshipful look Ray gave him. "My calculations are only accurate to within 30%, but I estimate the ectoplasm's migration toward the hypothalamus has been slowed sufficiently to give you another twenty-four hours, based on our initial estimation you would have died sometime tonight or early tomorrow without any intervention." 

Chagrin crossed Ray's expressive features. "If only I'd been helping you instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself for the last week. If we'd been able to create the chelating compound a day or two sooner it could have cleared enough free slime from me that I would have had much longer." 

A look of indescribable horror filled Egon's face. "Oh, my god," he whispered, his knees buckling. Barely keeping himself standing by bracing his weight on the bench with locked arms, he turned his head away from Ray, his whole body shaking. 

"What?" Ray asked urgently, reaching out to grasp his arm and steady him. "Egon, what is it? Are you all right?" 

"If I'd worked hard enough to finish the compound sooner, it might have saved you after all," he answered brokenly. "I knew the principle would work, but I couldn't figure it out in time." 

"No! That's not true!" Ray objected. "You did as much as you could. You can't blame yourself for not being faster or smarter, you're already a genius so who could have done better?" Tightening his grip on Spengler's arm, he tried to pull the physicist to face him but Egon refused to raise his head or give up the support of the table. "Egon, you did more than we had any right to expect from you, none of this is your fault." 

Egon shook his head, gaze still fixed on the table under his hands. "That doesn't really matter now, does it?" he asked bleakly. "Whether I caused it or not, I had the power to solve it. I failed in that and as a result you're going to die." 

"I was going to die anyway," Ray pointed out with practical fatality. "Now we just know when and why. Don't you have any idea how much it's worth to me to be free of the pain? Even if the cure didn't work it was worth everything to stop hurting like that." Nothing he said seemed to be convincing Egon to give up feeling guilty, and Ray finally gave up the effort for the moment, vowing to himself to take it up again soon. _Very soon_ , he reminded himself with a tiny smile of amusement. "There's nothing more you can do up here, now. Will you come down and keep me company for a while?" Recognizing the way Egon's body tensed as the beginning of a refusal, he added wistfully, "I'm just going to read a book but it would be nicer if you were nearby, like before... it would make me feel better if you were there, anyway." 

"Of course I'll come," Egon acquiesced immediately, finally turning to face him. There was indeed nothing more to be done in the lab, and he suspected nothing would get done there again for a long time. The only reason he'd resisted Ray's request was his knowledge of what a strain it would be for Stantz to be put in the middle between him and Peter. After the way Venkman had reacted in the afternoon, Egon knew it would be impossible to keep up an act as if nothing unusual were happening, however innocent their activities might start out. More than anything he could do now, he wanted to spare Ray the sight of his two best friends fighting. 

Responding to his own feelings and the utter misery in Egon's eyes, Ray leaned forward and hugged him. For a second it felt to him like the lean frame in his arms was brittle enough to break at the slightest pressure, but then strong arms wrapped around him in return and dispelled the illusion of frailty. 

* * *

To Ray, going to sleep seemed the most awful waste of time he could indulge in, but his body couldn't sustain his wish to remain awake continuously. The nap he'd taken after Egon's attempted cure had allowed him to stay up later, but by midnight a heavy feeling of total exhaustion covered him like a blanket. It was, as near as they could tell, going to be his next-to-last night on earth as a living being, but there was no way he could manage to stay awake through it. Nodding over his book, he came awake as his head dropped forward for the fourth time and decided there was no point in staying downstairs any longer. 

"I'm going to bed," he announced, laying the book aside regretfully. He'd really wanted to know how it ended before he died, but he was less than halfway through the story now and knew he wouldn't be able to finish it in the time left to him. 

In deference to Ray's desire to read, the TV had been left off and the others had also been quietly engrossed in books, but Peter had given up on his after a short while and spent the evening brooding. Eyes half-lidded, he had slumped in the chair facing the sofa and almost appeared to be dozing; but there was a tension to his body that belied the initial impression. Radiating from him was such a tangible aura of internal conflict that even had the others been disposed toward conversation, they would have hesitated to disturb his thoughts. Though he said nothing, the periodic flash of anger in his eyes as his gaze crossed Egon, or the softening of his look as he turned his head to check on Ray spoke volumes about the direction his feelings had gone. 

As Ray slowly climbed from his comfortable nest on the couch Peter was instantly at his side to help, but his assistance wasn't necessary. A general closing of books and turning off of lights ensued as if everyone had only been waiting for a cue to retire. They trooped up the spiral stairs in a line and headed toward the bedroom, moving at Ray's chosen pace. 

Too tired to pay attention to anything but getting to his own bed, Ray stumbled over a boot that had been left in the middle of the floor. With an inarticulate cry he pitched forward, landing hard on the bare wooden floor. A tired, mournful "Oww" escaped him before he bit his tongue and began to struggle back to his feet. 

The closest to him by pure chance, Egon bent to give him a hand up. He was pushed out of the way before he touched Ray, and only saved his own balance with an effort. Straightening, he stepped further out of Peter's path and said, "That really wasn't necessary. I was right here." 

Turning on him, Peter opened his mouth, eyes narrowed, then closed it with a snap and merely glared, his expression giving away nothing but fierce rejection. 

The dismissal carried all the sting of a physical blow and Egon drew back sharply, the hurt in his eyes buried so quickly his expression did not flicker. Without replying he retreated to his own bed, his movements as cleanly precise as those of a soldier on inspection. 

Peter lifted Stantz back to his feet with a gentleness totally at odds with the expression he had worn a second ago. Supporting Ray solicitously over the remaining distance to his bunk and sitting down beside him, Peter kept one arm possessively around Ray's back, his attention fixed on Stantz to the exclusion of all else. 

Leaning against him wearily, Ray sighed, his head drooping. A moment later, he drew a deeper breath and sat straighter on his own, turning to look directly at Peter. "Do you love me?" he asked in a subdued voice. Peter's eyes sparkled more brightly, the brief sheen of tears in them all the answer needed though he nodded as well. "He does too," Ray continued softly, glancing with sad longing toward Egon's deliberately turned back before his eyes returned with unnervingly clear intent to Peter's face. When Peter's expression began to harden in objection, Ray added even more quietly, his words so low they could not have been heard another foot away, "As much as you do." 

With an angry shake of his head, Peter surged to his feet, but Ray caught at his sleeve and tugged. Not wanting to hear more on the subject but even more unwilling to refuse any request from Ray, Peter allowed himself to be pulled back down. Perched on the edge of the bed, his body language was a study in contradiction as he struggled to maintain his wall against Egon while giving Ray free access to his heart. 

Shifting his hold to Peter's wrist, Ray searched his friend's face for the compassion he knew filled the soul beneath the surface. "You said I could have whoever I want with me," he reminded Venkman earnestly. Reaching out with his free hand, he laid his palm over Peter's chest, topaz gaze fixed on the shadowed green eyes mere inches away. His voice as mild as the touch of warmth he could feel through the sweatshirt under his hand, he said, "I want my best friends. I want my family together, the four of us like always. Will you make that happen for me?" 

Unable to do more than nod, Peter caught a shaking breath and laid his own hand over Ray's. "You want it, you got it," he promised huskily, then stood slowly, as if he were lifting a great weight. Reluctantly his touch trailed away from Ray's and he turned toward the bedroom door just as Winston came in through it. "I think I'll take a shower," he said, his voice too tight with strain to sound entirely natural. 

"OK." Winston looked from the impassive mask Egon wore where he lay motionless in his bed to the trace of pleading left on Ray's face, aware something had gone on but unable to determine precisely what. The set of Peter's jaw told him asking would be pointless so he settled for inquiring neutrally, "You want me to leave the light on?" 

"Naah, not necessary." Grabbing his pajamas off his bed, Peter passed Zeddemore without pausing or making eye contact. 

Sighing, Winston flipped the light switch and headed for his own bed in the semi-darkness. It was too easy to guess what was wrong with his friends, and he was no closer to having a solution to give any of them than he had been a week ago. 

* * *

Egon lay awake, the despairing, hopeless pain in Ray's voice when he fell and the angry contempt in Peter's face combining to upset him so much he could not simply close his eyes and drop off the edge of exhaustion into an abyss of sleep. Around him the firehouse settled into its nighttime quiet, the rustling and movement of Ray and Winston settling into bed giving way to steady breathing and the beginning of snores. The sound of the shower running reached him, a gentle background murmur that had often smoothed his way into slumber, yet the longer he was awake staring at the ceiling in silent contemplation of everything that surrounded him, the more miserable he felt. A band of tightness slowly constricted around his chest and then crawled up to his throat. While Egon had always appeared to take their friendship for granted, over the years the unquestioned support that came from Ray and Peter had enveloped and melded with his own outlook until the dependable presence of their affection had come to be an integral, vital part of the foundation of his life. Losing that underpinning through Ray's approaching death and Peter's angry withdrawal left him floundering for meaning and suddenly unsure of the reasons to believe in himself. 

The thought of Ray's life slipping away from them hour by hour, minute by minute, drove a lance of anguish through him fresh and sharp each time it struck, never dulled by its constant repetition. Soon, he knew, they would all have to begin preparing for the end, saying their last good-byes and facing the loss and its consequences to their lives. Sometimes he wondered if Peter's carefully nurtured resentment helped divert the pain well enough that the attitude would be worth trying himself. That he felt he deserved the condemnation and animosity Peter threw at him shook the deepest roots of his self-confidence, a part of himself that had always been completely unassailable but during the day just past had received the severest blow of his life. 

He was human, he knew that, and humans make mistakes. Experiments had blown up on him before—it was a natural, recognized hazard of the line of research he chose to pursue. The initial accident hadn't even particularly been his fault, and he'd dealt with its damage fairly quickly in a logical and efficient manner. But decades of immunity from truly moronic screw-ups had left him completely unfamiliar with the feeling that comes from making a mistake of utter, glaring stupidity, much less one that carried such unbearable consequences to someone else. He had brought Ray's sight back only to kill him in the process, and he didn't have any refuge from blame for that error. If he'd waited a little longer, studied the problem a little more thoroughly as Peter had suggested, checked his results more carefully before forging ahead with the 'cure', Ray wouldn't be facing a death sentence. It mattered a great deal to him that Peter would not forgive him, but it mattered even more that he could not forgive himself. It mattered most of all that Ray was going to die and not only was there was nothing he could do about it, he had blown the one chance he'd had to fix everything. 

At that thought the tightness in his throat prowled further upward into his sinuses, and his eyes stung with oncoming tears. Faced with the oncoming total loss of his desperately held control, Egon knew he could not remain in bed to cry in his pain where the others could hear, where his breakdown would fill Ray with guilt and force Peter to either collapse with him or treat him with contempt for the sake of maintaining his own control. 

Gathering the tattered remains of his pride, he slid out from under the covers, padding silently to the door and down the stairs to the living room. Laying his useless glasses on top of the stereo tuner and choosing a disc at random, he turned the system on, barely able to see well enough through the tears already filling his eyes to load the CD player. The haunting, melodic chords of Enya's _Watermark_ began as he collapsed on the couch, crossing his arms over the end of it, burying his face in them and letting go, hoping the music was low enough not to bother anyone yet loud enough to cover the sound of his harsh sobbing. 

* * *

Peter flipped the valve to send the water overhead, simmering with residual rage and the clashing requirement to bury it for Ray's sake. Recalling the pain in Ray's face and the cold way Egon had turned away from them made his teeth grind together over the visible proof Spengler knew he deserved the blame. Stepping into the heated downpour, the psychologist closed his eyes but against his will the image he had tried to build of a heartless, uncaring physicist kept fading and changing into the look of fiercely repressed devastation in Egon's eyes, and it became a greater and greater effort to hold on to his anger. Egon was his oldest friend; he could read the calm, untroubled surface the physicist presented to most of the world like an open book, and what he had seen there was not something he was proud to have caused. Even ignoring such distress was difficult but he fought his instinct fiercely, pulling against the sympathy that dragged him closer to the edge of the grief he had not yet dealt with. 

Turning and letting the water pound along his back as he moodily contemplated the shower curtain without really seeing it, Peter clinically explored his own feelings. _Why am I trying so hard to stay mad at him?_ The way he had been acting, however harsh, wasn't drawn from any true, deep anger at Egon. _If the way I treat him isn't his fault, what am I displacing on to him?_ Only when he forced himself to think about it deliberately did he realize he had been rejecting Egon because the guilt and emotional agony radiating from the physicist was so like his own he couldn't bear it. Peter's grief filled every corner of his mind to overflowing and he knew if he were to reach out and allow himself to acknowledge the well of sorrow in his friend, it would draw him in and drown him until he wouldn't be able to function at all. So he had kept that pain—and the man it haunted—at arms' length in order to maintain what composure he could manage. _And he let me do it, too. He knew what I was doing and he stood still for it._

A slow realization began to sink in through the tangled mess his emotions had become. Despite the very real destruction of a major part of his life, he wasn't losing everything. However much Ray's death would hurt them all, Peter still had a friend who knew him well enough to have done everything possible to avoid breaking his control no matter how cruel a toll that control took on the one closest to him. His face twisted in shame at the memory of things he had said over the past days, and he turned back to face the water as if willing it to wash away his chagrin. Realizing what he had in the friend sharing his grief, he began to feel a lightening of the oppressive sense of being trapped he had been living with. Winston had been right that one morning that seemed so long ago; there was more in his world to lose than one life, and to let it all be taken from him would be a worse tragedy than the death of their beloved Ray. _I kept telling Ray to consider the consequences of whatever he did. Psychologist, analyze thyself. Egon, I'm sorry._

With a quick turn of his wrists he shut the water off and stepped out of the tub, toweling himself off hurriedly and pulling his pajamas on, cursing when they dragged at his still-damp skin. Intending to make up with Egon if he had to sit on the stubborn blond's chest to do it, he headed back to the bedroom. Entering the darker room, he hesitated long enough for his eyes to adjust, then his forehead creased in brief puzzlement when he realized he wasn't hearing Egon's distinctive snore mingling with the others. Instead he could hear faint music from the floor below, at odds with his recollection of having turned everything off before coming up when Ray had decided to retire. For a moment he stood there, partway into the room, his bare feet chilling on the wood floor, trying to fit the situation into a pattern that made sense. Another song on the disc below began, distant and melancholy, but in the tiny space between tracks the deep, coughing sound of Egon's crying reached him, something Peter had heard so few times before it took him a second to recognize what it was. 

Tiptoeing to the pole well, he dropped in a fast, quiet motion to lay flat on the floor and poked his head down through the hole. Accustomed to surveying the room below from that vantage he was not confused by the upside-down view he had, but in the dim light afforded by the red telltales on the stereo, the sight of Egon, head pillowed on his arms, shoulders shaking as he cried, was incredibly disorienting because it was so unusual. Peter's reaction was an instant, overpowering need to make his friend's suffering stop, no matter the cost to his own pride or composure. 

Climbing to his feet, he headed for the hall and made his way down the stairs. He did not hesitate at the room's doorway but headed straight to the couch, only pausing when he reached Egon's side. Sliding one arm around his friend's shoulders, he settled onto the sofa and whispered, "Egon, you idiot." 

Spengler's breath caught on a half-drawn sob and he stiffened, the muscles in his back going rigid at the touch. Before he could straighten away, Peter wrapped both arms around the lean chest and leaned against his back, holding him in place. Laying his cheek along the sharp line of one shoulder blade, he said softly, "We've been friends too long for you to have to cry alone." Under him, the tight set of Egon's back slowly relaxed, then caught in another gasp for breath. 

"C'm'ere," Venkman demanded tenderly, and shifted back only far enough to pull Egon away from the arm of the couch and into his own arms. He hated himself for every nasty word he had uttered in the last week, reminded once again of the depth of friendship between them by the willing way Egon turned to him for the haven offered. Enfolding Egon in a secure embrace, he ran his hand over the head that came to rest against his chest, his fingers slipping through the long hair and catching ever so slightly on its smoothly curling waves. "Let me help," he whispered, and something deep within relaxed as Egon's arms wrapped around him in return. 

_Strange how_  
_my heart beats_  
_To find myself upon your shore_  


There was no way Peter's compassionate nature could allow him to hold his friend's shuddering body and not think about what had brought them to this state. The power of Egon's visible grief broke the lock on all the misery of his own Peter had been repressing since the explosion first upset their lives. His breath caught in a sob and he felt Egon's arms tighten around him in reciprocation as he began to shake uncontrollably and tears filled his eyes. Seeing what the last failure had done to the pillar of calm, unshakable confidence the physicist had always been, he could not help believing they were going to lose Ray. Facing it at last, bereft of his protective shell of animosity, Peter's control broke apart and he cried as Egon wept in his arms. 

He cried bitterly, finding no comfort or ease in the tears he shed, only a fragmented consolation in the arms that held him with the same desperate need for solace he felt. Though nothing could make the loss of Ray easy to bear, Peter knew he had found the one support that could sustain him through the coming days. All the strength he could need would be found right where it had always been, where it would always be waiting for him: in the extraordinary friendship he shared with Egon Spengler. Comfortable with the solid weight of Egon's body settled against him, warm in his arms through the pongee nightshirt, he felt at peace with his friend and, therefore, himself for the first time in weeks. Tightening his arms around the physicist as if to hold at least one of his friends firmly to life, Peter sighed shakily and his tears slowed at last. 

Finally, after a deep, heartfelt sigh, Egon shifted backward and Peter let him go, trailing his fingers through the blond, curled forelock one last time, pulling it straight out and watching it fall back into place only slightly disarrayed. As Egon leaned more naturally against his side, Peter ran one pajama sleeve over his eyes and said quietly, "I'm sorry I shut you out. That was uncalled-for." 

_Strange how_  
_I still feel_  
_My loss of comfort gone before_  


Egon shook his head, and for a while after that it seemed as if he would not elaborate. Peter began to suspect he would maintain his reserve even now, and wasn't sure whether he had yet re-earned the right to pry further. Resisting the urge to push the conversation he let the silence between them stretch easily without expectation. 

Drawing back so he no longer rested in contact with Peter, Egon settled at a safe distance, separate but not quite apart, and tried to explain himself. "The accident and Ray's initial injury were partially my fault, but I am entirely to blame for his imminent death," he began, clasping his hands around his knees and staring at them. "He was in no real danger until I compounded the situation by allowing him to undergo a hasty, ill-conceived solution to the blindness. I've never questioned my intelligence before, and finding I am capable of such awful, stupid, criminal carelessness...." he trailed off, at a loss to fully understand even now how he could have missed something so obvious and simple, ashamed and horrified all over again. 

_Cool waves wash over_  
_and drift away with dreams of youth_  
_so time is stolen_  
_I cannot hold you long enough_  


"Makes you wonder about your entire view of yourself?" Peter suggested gently, no trace of judgment in his voice. 

Egon nodded, and his chest rose and fell in a silent sigh. "Precisely." 

"And you've never faced that before, have you?" There was more than a little awe in his tone this time. For someone who had never considered the question out of sheer arrogance he would have had only contempt, but he knew Egon's attitude wasn't based on any unwarranted overestimation of his own worth. "God, Egon, you don't know how lucky you are." 

_And so_  
_this is where I should be now_  
_Days and nights falling by_  


Full, sculpted lips twisted in expressive disbelief, and Peter reached over, laying a hand on Egon's interwoven fingers and waiting until blue eyes rose slowly to meet his. There was a distressed uncertainty in their depths he had never seen there before, a loss of inner confidence that was totally unfamiliar and just as hard to look at as the unfocused, searching blankness of Ray's blind stare had been. 

"I'm serious," Venkman said, and he spoke as both friend and professional counselor. "Most of us go through life doubting our value, afraid we'll be caught faking it but not knowing how else to be 'adult,' secretly wondering why our friends like us so much despite our faults and scared to death they'll find out the awful truth and leave us in disgust. You're the only man I know who never seemed to have those doubts; you always knew you were brilliant and the rest fell into place so easily you never worried about it. Do you have any idea how much I envied you when we first met? How much I still do?" 

At that, a flash of something that might almost have been fear sparked deep in Egon's eyes. "Even now, after what I've done to Ray? He's dying, Peter, and it's because of what I did, and what I failed to do afterward." 

_Strange how I falter_  
_to find I'm standing in deep water_  


"Even now, Egon. What happened was an accident, a rotten, unfortunate, stinking accident. You couldn't have tried any harder to prevent it than you did, as I recall. If anyone's to blame for letting him get into this spot, it's me, I supported his choice against your better judgment. You're not omniscient, none of us are. You may be a genius, but you're not God. If you'll stop beating up on yourself, I promise I will too." 

A flicker of expression crossed Egon's face at that, a hint of relief or hope as if he had been resigned to going back to enduring Peter's cold rejection in the morning. "That would be nice," he said very softly. 

In that moment, Peter hated himself again for what he had been deliberately doing to Egon in order to spare himself a little pain. It didn't even matter Egon had known why he was acting so badly and allowed it for the sake of their friendship and his knowledge of Peter's needs. "I'm such an asshole," Venkman sighed. "I thought you had that figured out by now." 

He was rewarded with a weak chuckle. Leaning back and tipping his head to the side quizzically, Egon regarded him with affection, if somewhat nearsightedly. "I do know that, Peter," he said reasonably. "You've always been an asshole." 

"But you love me anyway," Peter suggested hopefully, and his heart leaped again, this time at the look of surprise such a feeling would even be in doubt. 

"Of course. I thought you had that figured out." 

_strange how_  
_my heart beats_  
_to find I'm standing on your shore_ 1  


Peter leaned across the distance separating them and wrapped his arms around Egon in a quick, tight hug that squeezed the breath from the blond. "You're not an asshole, but I love you anyway." 

"Thank you." He paused, looking comically undecided. "I think." 

"No, Egon," Peter demurred with renewed seriousness as he released his embrace. "Don't thank me. You've been my friend from the start whether I deserved it or not, especially when I didn't. In the past couple weeks when I deserved your friendship less than any other time, you've let me get away with more crap than anyone should have to put up with." 

"You always deserved it," Egon pointed out, his self-consciousness showing in the way he pushed one finger along the bridge of his nose to settle his glasses even though he wasn't wearing them. "But sometimes you needed it more than others." 

"I think you needed mine too, and it wasn't there." Steady and solemn his gaze met Egon's, his right hand curling warm around the back of the taller man's neck. "I swear I won't fail you again." Though spoken quietly, his promise held Egon spellbound with its pure intensity. 

"Guys?" Ray's soft inquiry broke the silence. 

"Yes, Ray?" Peter answered, his voice gently welcoming though his eyes didn't leave Egon's face. 

Stantz shuffled the rest of the way down the stairs. "Why are you sitting in the dark?" 

Peter held the contact with Egon a moment longer as if to emphasize his commitment to what he had said, then let go and turned to smile over his shoulder at Ray. "Just shedding some light of our own on a few outstanding debts. Come on in, the water's fine." 

Carefully Ray moved across the room to the reading lamp over the chair. When he turned it on at the lowest setting, a forgiving wash of yellow-touched light brightening the room without harshness. "The overhead one hurts my eyes," he explained apologetically as he turned to face them. 

Ducking his head, Peter quickly ran the sleeve of his pajamas across his eyes. "I gotta go get my slippers, my feet are freezing." Sliding away from Egon's side, Peter headed for the stairs. As he passed Ray, he slid an arm around the occultist and drew him close to his side for a brief moment. "You got your wish," he murmured into Ray's ear before letting him go, ruffling his hair affectionately and then continuing on across the short distance to the stairs. 

"Ray," Egon greeted him, mild surprise coloring his voice. "I had hoped not to disturb you, you need to rest." 

"You didn't wake me," Stantz replied, then explained, "I couldn't sleep after all. I was worried about you and Peter." 

"We...came to an understanding," Egon said carefully. Clearing his throat, he pulled himself to his feet and walked over to the stereo shelf where he had left his glasses. Finding them, he settled them back on his nose, grimaced at the dried saltwater that spotted the lenses and pulled them off again, bending far enough to polish them on the hem of his nightshirt. 

Seeing Egon's nervous activity for the avoidance it was, Ray pointed out the one thing Peter's change in attitude had made him sure of. "He doesn't really blame you. None of us do. I sure don't." 

"I do." His whisper a hoarse admission of guilt, Egon turned his head away, unable to meet Ray's clear, forgiving gaze. Fumbling his glasses back into place on his nose, he added quietly, "And my experiments are over, forever." 

Shocked, Ray blurted, "I don't want you to give up your work." 

"It's too dangerous to continue," Egon said firmly, and he slowly turned back to face Ray as if his gaze were drawn against his will. "My work has cost me the one thing I could not endure giving up. How can I go on after this?" 

Ray grimaced in a perplexed refusal to accept Spengler's conclusion. "That's not the point. People have died for scientific research before. What about Madame Curie, the Challenger crew, or that geologist who died taking the pictures of Mt. St. Helens blowing up? Do you think they regret their choices? I doubt it. I don't regret mine. The only thing that could make it not worthwhile is if you gave up, if the search for knowledge we shared had to die with me. Then I would be truly sorry, because something I believe is very important, more important than my own life, would be lost as well." 

"There is nothing more important than an individual life. All science seeks to understand the world so that lives can be improved, prolonged, or saved." His head bowed, he added in a low voice, "Instead, my science has killed you. No knowledge is worth that price." 

"If that knowledge someday saved your life, it would be worth it to me." 

His eyes were still salt-burned and at Ray's soft declaration he felt the sharp prickle of rising tears again. "Oh, god, Ray," he choked, "How can you forgive me?" All the guilt returned, unabated by any absolution Peter had given. 

His eyes holding Egon's gaze, Ray stepped forward and reached for Egon's hands. Clasping them, he said with easy compassion, "There's nothing to forgive, Egon. You're not to blame for this." Staring earnestly into clouded, uncertain blue eyes, he added softly, "Please, for my sake, don't ever let yourself feel blame." 

"How can I not?" Egon asked in real agony. "You wouldn't be dying if not for my failures." His hold on Ray's hands was desperately tight, though it trembled. 

"No...." Ray moaned, letting go of his hands so he could slide forward and wrap his arms around Egon. "Don't do this to yourself." His back stiffened, then he pushed himself away and held Egon firmly by the shoulders. A new determination lit his eyes and his voice edged on anger. "Stop it! I'm OK with dying, I've made my peace with what's happening. But watching what you and Peter are doing to yourselves over it is worse than knowing there's so little time left." Shaking the physicist, he said intently, "Make the look in your eyes something I can bear to see. Is that too much to ask?" 

For a moment Egon's face seemed to say it was, then a tenseness left his back and he shook his head. "No," he said, then cleared the hoarseness from his throat. "It's not too much." _But it still may be more than I can give._

"Miss me?" Peter asked, returning down the metal spiral. His jaunty attitude testified to the good his ostensible errand had coincidentally done for his composure. 

"Always." Ray smiled over at him, radiating happiness. Pulling Egon with him toward the couch, he asked hopefully, "Can we listen to the rest of the disc before going back up to bed?" Too surprised to protest, Egon allowed himself to be steered back and dropped into the corner of the sofa. Settling in close to him, Ray leaned against Egon's side and held out his arms, inviting Peter to join them. 

"Whatever you want," Peter agreed tolerantly, and he squeezed in next to them like Ray wanted though it left nearly half the space on the couch empty. 

"I'm so glad you guys are friends again," Ray sighed contentedly. Snuggling down in the warm haven between his two best friends, he practically wriggled with delight at having gotten the one thing he wanted from them. 

"We were always friends," Egon objected mildly, draping his arm easily around Ray's shoulders. Over the auburn head, his gaze met Peter's. 

"Yeah. Sometimes we just have to remind each other to act like it," Peter agreed. 

"I'm still glad," Ray said softly, then fell quiet as he listened to the peaceful music. More exhausted than he'd realized, he soon slipped into sleep, his head tipping sideways by slow degrees until it came to rest on Egon's shoulder. 

"You want to take him upstairs?" Peter asked in an undertone after the disc changer had cycled around and begun again on the first track. 

Looking down at the tousled auburn laying against him, Egon shook his head. Shifting slightly, he guided Ray's limp form into a more comfortable position cradled across his chest. The movement made Ray stir and a faintly muttered sound escaped him but he didn't wake up. Keeping his voice very low, Egon answered, "No. I've already missed too much time." His expression softened into infinite tenderness and he stroked Ray's hair with the tips of his fingers. "Let him stay here for now." 

"You got it, big guy." Sliding his weight delicately off the couch, Peter moved silently around the room. Turning the stereo way down until the peaceful music became a distant background ambiance, he picked the afghan up off the back of the armchair and brought it over to the sofa where he spread it gently over the two nestled there. 

"Thank you," Egon rumbled quietly. "We'll come up later." 

"No hurry," Peter told him, empathy roughening his whisper. Tucking the edges of the cover over Ray's outstretched legs, he came back around to stand in front of them. Dropping to one knee, he watched Ray sleeping for a minute, eyes misting slightly. Rising to his feet again with an effort of will, he reached out and laid his hand on Ray's head, his touch so light Stantz didn't stir under it. A moment later Peter's palm rested briefly on Egon's hair in a gentle benediction. "Take care of him for a while." 

Egon nodded quickly, catching a deeper breath to combat the tightening in his chest. By the time he could control his voice to answer, Peter had already left them. 

* * *

Spring turned capricious and the next day was heavily overcast, warm rain periodically splattering down from the lowering gray thunderclouds. Ray slept late, the lack of any restlessness indicating the depth of exhaustion his condition had brought him to. Peter slept late also, finally able to spend a night without disturbing dreams robbing him of rest. When Peter awoke he found Winston already keeping watch over the young occultist, a duty not necessary yet but one they indulged in anyway. 

Both of them aware this was one of the last two mornings they would ever have the opportunity to watch over the living form of their partner and friend Raymond Stantz, they stood in silent companionship for several minutes, sharing only a look and the warmth of their close proximity. When Peter felt his eyes begin to sting and fill, he excused himself with a touch on Winston's arm and went in search of Egon. Although Spengler's bed was neatly made, the smell of percolating coffee wasn't rising from the floor below as it usually did when the physicist was the first to rise. On a hunch, Peter went across the hall instead of downstairs. There he found Egon, already showered and dressed but not otherwise prepared to face the day. 

"What are you doing in here?" Peter asked curiously, pushing the lab door open and peering inside to where Egon sat at the main bench. 

For a moment Egon stared blankly around as if he could not remember how he had come to be in the room, much less what he was supposed to be doing. "I...didn't have anywhere else to go," he finally offered, uncharacteristic uncertainty making the answer sound more like a question. 

Moving over toward him and keeping his voice low, Peter said gently, "Ray's still asleep. You've done all you could, Egon, why don't you get some rest yourself?" The shadows under the blue eyes told their own story of how little good the sleep Egon had managed to get the night before had done him. 

"All I could? Which was precisely nothing, so I should hardly need to rest afterward," the physicist replied bitterly. His right hand clenched in a fist on the table and the muscles in his forearm tensed as he resisted the urge to sweep everything within reach onto the floor. 

Reaching his side, Peter slid one arm around Egon's shoulders and leaned slightly against him. "You took away the pain and gave him more time," he reminded Spengler, his voice roughening. "You big idiot, can't you remember that? What more could any of us have done?" 

"I could have saved him," Egon whispered bleakly. 

Using the arm draped over Egon's shoulders, Peter pulled the physicist up off the lab stool and around to face him. "Enough of that crap," he admonished sternly. "We went all through this last night. Seems to me you're bright enough to remember that far back. In words of one syllable, get over it." Betrayal flashed across Egon's face before the expression of closed stoicism he had worn for most of the last week began settling in again, but Peter shook him gently and continued, "You don't have to get over it on your own, or in silence, either. If you want to talk or you need someone to help you get drunk or break glassware, just ask me. I'll do whatever it takes to help you, Egon, but I won't let you wallow in something you're strong enough to handle. I love you too much to watch you destroy yourself like that." 

Surprise and gratitude broke the ice forming in Egon's mien and he smiled, eyes lighting with renewed fondness. "In that case, I will endeavor not to." 

"Good." Peter nodded once, closing the topic for the moment. "Then come down and have some breakfast with me." Letting go of Egon, he turned toward the door to lead the way, then jarred to a halt, surprised to find Ray standing propped against the door frame and watching them with a gentle smile. 

"Are you sure you should be up?" Peter asked solicitously. 

Eyes bright under his tousled bangs, Ray waved the concern aside with a shrug. Standing up straighter, carefully pushing himself away from the door frame, he tugged his pajama shirt hem straight as if suddenly embarrassed to slouching untidily in front of the others. 

Watching him closely, Peter saw him draw breath as if to speak but then release it in a pent-up sigh. When Ray's lower lip trembled and he took a hesitant step forward, Peter let go of Egon's arm and moved across the room to Ray's side. "What?" he asked very gently, his tone leading instead of purely questioning. "Hmmm?" Rubbing his right hand up and down Ray's upper arm as if to warm or encourage him, Venkman waited patiently until the younger man looked up to meet his eyes. 

"I'm glad you're going to be OK when I'm gone," Stantz said in a rush of words, the standing tears in his eyes magnifying the topaz irises into enormous brown-gold jewels. "I'm glad you're...." His breath caught on a sob and he held his arms up, asking without voice for a hug. 

Peter stepped forward and gathered him into an embrace. "How can we be OK when you're gone?" he asked, his voice roughening. "When you die, you'll take a piece of each of us with you. The piece I will lose is my heart." 

"And I," Egon affirmed quietly from beside them. 

Raising damp cheeks from Peter's shoulder, Ray smiled shakily at them both. "But you'll help each other heal now." He tilted his head against the hand Egon stroked against his hair, looking into his eyes with shining joy. "I was worried about you before." Loosening one arm from around Peter, he caught at Egon and pulled him close, including him in the hug. "I was worried about both of you." 

Peter's breath caught in a hiccuping sound halfway between a sob and a chuckle. "You were worried about us?" He tightened his hold on Ray, nearly crushing him breathless. Still suspended between laughing and crying, he ended up dropping his forehead against Ray's and merely murmuring, "Ray, Ray, Ray...." 

"I couldn't put it better myself," Egon sighed. One arm around each of his friends, Egon rested his chin on the top of Ray's head and stared at the lab wall without seeing it, thinking of all the things in his life he couldn't have done better without the presence of these two men along the way. Soundless tears filled his eyes and ran down the planes of his face to dampen Ray's hair. 

Ray sniffed again, shifting in their combined embrace. "Guys?" he wheezed. "I can't breathe." 

Instantly contrite, Peter released him, though retaining enough grasp on him to steady his balance. Egon also let go, stepping back and trying surreptitiously to scrub his face dry on his sleeve. 

Swaying a bit, glad of Peter's steadying support, Ray plucked self-consciously at his pajama top. "Guess I'll go get dressed," he mumbled. 

"What do you want to do today?" Peter asked. 

"All kinds of things." Ray perked up for a moment, then sagged. "But the only thing I feel up to is lying on the couch watching movies." 

"If that's what you want to do, that's what we'll do," Peter said firmly. Steering Ray back toward the door, he gave the occultist a friendly push in the direction of the bathroom and added, "We'll be downstairs with Winston; I can smell him starting breakfast. You just concentrate on deciding exactly what you want to see." 

As the door shut behind Ray, Peter turned back to where Egon still stood in the lab entry. "You OK?" he asked the physicist softly. 

Egon's gaze tracked slowly across the distance separating his thoughts from Peter's presence, the shadows in his eyes' clear, blue depths deepening with sorrow. "It's his last day," he whispered hoarsely. 

"Yes, it is," Peter acknowledged, the words twisting his throat painfully. 

Waving one hand in a helpless gesture, Egon asked, "Should we be spending it watching movies on TV? We should be making the most of the time he has." 

"We should be making him enjoy his time as much as possible. A very wise man once told me not to try to make someone else happy by forcing them to do what I like the most. If Ray wants to watch Star Wars one more time, I'll sit with him and pretend I don't know the whole thing by heart without complaint." Squaring his shoulders, he lifted his chin proudly, the darkness hovering over his soul giving a tragic cast to his features that was quickly dissipated by a flashing smile. "Now come on, a very wise man is making breakfast for us and I'd hate for it to go to waste." 

Egon essayed a smile in return, moving to join him on the stairs going downward. "Odd," he commented. "I'm used to you claiming if something has to go to waste, it might as well be yours." 

"Waist, Egon, and I never said that." 

* * *

If one were to stand next to a window, the sound of pattering rain striking the glass could be heard, the storm's threat muted to a counterpoint to the comfort and warmth of the house. Thunder boomed through the city's canyons like the muffled roar of distant cannons. Something about the cosiness of being inside during such weather brought out an uncharacteristic urge in Janine to bake and the smell of chocolate chip cookies filled the second floor. Cold milk and fresh cookies still hot from the oven had sufficed for lunch, eaten in front of the second Back to the Future movie. 

"Are you sure this is all you want today?" Egon asked, sliding the cassette for the third movie of that series out of its box. "It wouldn't be much more difficult than staying here to go somewhere to a new film you don't have a copy of." 

Ray shrugged, leaning forward from the couch to pick up another cookie. He needed both hands to support its soft center against disintegrating. "There isn't anything new out I really want to see." 

"I can dig it," Winston agreed, looking up from the book he had propped on his stomach. "Better to spend some quality time with something you know you love than waste your time looking for a substitute." 

"Exactly." Ray nodded, pulling the cookie apart to watch the half-melted chocolate separate into short stringers. When he looked up, his direct gaze dispelled any notion that he had missed the message Winston was sending the physicist. "And this is where the things I love are, so why go out?" 

"Absolutely," Peter mumbled around a mouthful of Dorito chiplets. Sitting next to Ray, he had gorged himself until he was so torpid he could barely stay awake, but showed no signs of slowing down his intake. Licking the last salt off his fingertips, he picked up the bowl and shook it as if hoping he could miraculously turn the powder left in the bottom of it into one more whole chip. 

"I was just asking," Egon backpedaled defensively. "I wasn't trying to force anyone to do anything they don't want to." 

"It's OK." Ray grinned up at him and patted the empty spot on the couch next to himself, inviting Spengler to resume his place. "Come on, this is my favorite of the three, even though the first is the best technically." 

Settling in next to Ray on the side opposite Peter, Egon propped his feet on the coffee table between the decimated plate of cookies and the empty chip bowl Peter had discarded with a sigh. Ray leaned close against his side and handed Spengler a cookie half. "Don't worry, this is exactly where I want to be." Stantz confided with a guileless smile. "You're just where I want you to be, too." 

"Everything in its place," Winston sighed contentedly. "What a great condition." 

"The food, however, is not where I want it to be. We're out of chips again," Peter announced grumpily. His grouching was only for show, a half-smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. 

"Have a cookie instead," Egon suggested helpfully, lifting the last one off the plate and offering it to him across Ray's chest. 

Venkman shuddered and closed his eyes with a pained expression. "No more sugar," he moaned. "Must have salt." Hoisting himself out of the comfort of the sofa with exaggerated difficulty, he gathered up an armload of empty glasses and cans, balancing the big bowl on top of it all as he turned toward the kitchen. 

"Don't forget the cookie plate," Winston called, miming ducking out of the way of falling objects as Peter swung over toward him. "OK, OK!" Bouncing to his feet, he grabbed the plate and followed Peter to the kitchen. 

"Looks like we're going to have to send Janine out for more munchies," Peter said as he surveyed the collection of empty containers littering the kitchen table. "And we're out of whole milk, too." 

"Good thing she hasn't figured out that running grocery errands isn't in her job description," Winston observed dryly, setting the empty plate on the table. 

"If she ever gets a job description, we're going to have to start doing more of our own grunt work," Venkman agreed cheerily. Poking through the cabinet where they normally kept munchies, he extracted a half-empty box of saltines, contemplated it briefly with pursed lips, and tossed it back to the rear of the shelf with a muttered, "Bleah." 

Piling the last of the cookies from the brown paper where they'd cooled onto the plate, Winston suggested, "You should give her something special for making these cookies, they're terrific. Maybe it's about time you gave her a bonus." 

"Yeah," Peter reluctantly admitted, then he scowled. "Although she did make them on company-paid working hours and with our supplies, so she ought to be staying late to make up the time." When Winston cuffed him on the arm, he grinned with unrepentant humor. "OK, maybe not." 

"Maybe I'll tell her you said that." Peter cowered in mock terror at the threat and held up two fingers pressed together at a right angle in the protective sign of the cross. Winston relented with a laugh. For a moment he was purely amused, then a sudden shadow passed over his mood and he turned his attention back to his chore as if trying to hide the too-frequent blinking of his eyes. 

Straightening, Peter watched him sympathetically for a moment, then he said with perfect understanding, "Can't get away from it for long enough, can you?" 

Winston's dark eyes met his with open appeal, the deep brown glazed with a faint sheen of tears. "It's so weird," he said wonderingly. "I mean, like just now, it's like everything is fine and we're just having a good time, and then, bam! I remember Ray won't be with us this time tomorrow and it hurts all over again, even while it all feels too unreal to believe." 

"I know." Peter's expression sobered so quickly there was no trace of the playfulness that had sparkled in his eyes seconds ago. "Sometimes I think the unreality is the only thing making this bearable at all. I'm afraid of what I'll feel when it becomes too real to ignore any more." He gave a half-hearted snort of shaky laughter, trying to cover the naked vulnerability of the admission he had just made. "I haven't done all that well dealing with it when it wasn't real; the odds don't look good for me making it through the next few weeks with any semblance of maturity." 

The mental image of Peter acting less mature than usual achieved the expected reaction, pulling Winston from his incipient funk. "You've done just fine, Pete, and don't try to tell me otherwise. You'll do OK, and you'll make sure the rest of us do too." Though he had initially only intended to reassure Venkman, Winston found himself finishing the sentiment with absolute confidence in its truth. Another thought occurred to him and he asked, "Why don't you invite Janine to join us? Tomorrow's her day off," _and Ray's last day alive_ "and she's his friend, too." 

"I did," Peter answered. "She said she might be up later this afternoon to spend some time with us before she goes home. It's kind of hard for her." He shrugged with helpless discomfort. "She doesn't want to depress him by saying tearful farewells when he's having a good time, and she doesn't know what else to do when his time is so short. I couldn't tell her what the right thing would be." 

From the other room, Ray's voice hailed them, breaking into their growing melancholy with the reminder there was a little time left yet. "Come on, guys! You're missing the best part!" 

"Coming!" Winston hollered back, picking up the plate. "He's such a kid," he sighed, then shut his mouth on the associated thought that Ray was too young to die, whatever his calendar age might be. 

Affection colored with sadness brought a small smile to Peter's face and it was clear he'd followed Winston's train of thought without difficulty. "I'd wondered if he'd qualify for the Make A Wish Foundation program," he admitted. Picking up the remaining half gallon of milk, his gaze resharpened and focused on his companion. "Until I realized you'd made it possible for me to grant his last wishes myself. I can't thank you enough for that, Winston." 

"I just sped up the inevitable," Zeddemore demurred, slightly embarrassed at the praise, but his smile had the brilliance of several hundred watts. "Come on, Pete, let's go make sure we don't miss the best part." 

"Amen to that." 

* * *

Eyelids drooping as enormous yawns ambushed him more and more frequently, Ray struggled to remain conscious through the end of The Last Crusade. He loved the way the movie ended with the riders disappearing into the sunset; it was both a classical way to end heroic films and reminiscent of one of their own adventures in which his own cleverness had provided the solution that saved the team. And now, he reflected sleepily as the credits began to roll over the stirring music, he was about to take his own ride into the sunset. But his friends wouldn't be at his side the whole way along that road. 

They were beside him now, though. Peter sprawled on the couch beside him as half-asleep as he was, and Egon slouched in the armchair looking drawn and tired but determined to stay awake. Winston had succumbed already, his head tipped back against the sofa, quiet snores periodically coming from his half-opened mouth. On the low table in front of the couch, Slimer had settled comfortably in the empty popcorn bowl and was also snoring, albeit more noisily than Winston. 

As Ray forced his eyes open one more time and leaned forward for the remote, Peter shook his head sharply and asked with counterfeit alertness, "What are we watching next?" 

Ray turned off the TV and the VCR, then pulled himself to his feet. "You guys can watch whatever you want, I couldn't stay awake any longer if we had the dailies from the next Star Wars chapter." Yawning so widely his jaw cracked, he shuffled toward the spiral stairs leading upward, but before he reached them both Peter and Egon were at his sides. 

Behind them Winston stirred and came to life. Shaking the popcorn bowl, he said, "Come on, Spud, bedtime." As Slimer stretched, yawned, and lazily floated toward the ceiling, he added, "And stay away from anybody's sheets and pillows until you've washed that butter off!" 

"He won't, you know," Peter grumbled as they reached the third floor. "He doesn't wash, he just assimilates the grease and it makes that goo he spreads all over me smell like stale food. Yucgghg." 

"Yucggghhg," Slimer agreed, meeting them in the bedroom. Peter's pillow was already iridescent with a thin, slightly rancid, butter-flavored coating. 

Peter's gaze traveled from his pillow to the spud, and then he stepped casually closer to the ghost, inquiring with false sweetness, "Slimer, do you know what 'extreme prejudice' means?" Behind him, he could hear the poorly muffled laughter of his friends, and he waved one hand irritably behind his back to quiet them down. 

Eyes wide with innocent ignorance, Slimer shook his head. If there was any connection in his thoughts between the evidence of misbehavior on Peter's bed and the odd way the psychologist was looking at him, he gave no sign of it. 

"Come here and I'll whisper it to you," Venkman offered in a coaxing tone. "It's a secret I'll only share with you." 

A renewed burst of giggles nearly tipped Slimer off at the last moment, but he was close enough by then for Peter to leap at him and successfully grab an arm. Yanking the green blob closer to himself, Peter reached for the point below the gaping mouth where a throat would nominally be located, murderous intent lighting his face. 

Squealing with sudden (or well-feigned) alarm, Slimer sprang away, his arm stretching elastically. When Peter didn't let go by the time the arm had elongated to about five feet in length, Slimer rebounded toward Venkman as if restrained by a bungee cord. Missing Peter by less than an inch on the return swing, Slimer whipped around the human like a tetherball around a pole and ended up splatting into his chest while also being wrapped completely around him several times. Peter hit the floor on his butt, unable to balance with his arms effectively tied to his sides. 

An impotent, growling cry of rage escaped Venkman, and Slimer hurriedly oozed away from him in all directions. Reforming into his normal shape above Peter's head, he asked considerately, "Peterrrr OK?" 

"Augghh!" Leaping straight upward, Peter nearly caught him again. Slimer disappeared through the ceiling, a thin wail of panic floating in his wake. As Peter stood glaring upward at the spot the ghost had vanished above, a last dollop of slime coalesced on the ceiling tile and dripped down onto his upturned face. 

"You brought that one on yourself, m'man," Winston told him unsympathetically when the laughter had died down. 

"He's quite correct," Egon agreed with unnecessary smugness, failing to suppress a grin. Carefully staying as far from the dripping psychologist as possible, he handed over Peter's robe and pajamas. 

Ray was still smiling over the scene, shaking his head and chuckling to himself as he moved toward his bed. _And that_ , Peter said to himself with a matching contented smile once he'd reached the bathroom, _is worth any number of extra showers._

* * *

_The huge, dark funnel of cloud reached from the lowering, greenish ceiling of the sky, twisting with slow, inexorable force as its tip touched the earth. Its wake was pure destruction and its movements were unpredictable, terrifying in their random finality. From his big house on the hill, Winston watched the tornado progress toward him across the rolling, urbanized hills of the city. Flattening houses, uprooting ancient trees, and tossing cars as if they were straws, it was more than a force of nature; it was a malevolent avatar of holocaust bent on devastating everything in its path. Lives, families, love, all were doomed where the storm went._

 _There was nothing he could do to turn it aside from his home and the people within who meant even more to him than the structure. Sadness beyond bearing filled him until there was almost no room left for fear, only a tiny anxiety about what the end would feel like when it came._

* * *

_The smoldering wreckage spread out around Peter for hundreds of feet in every direction, turning the level, grassy field into an obstacle course under a pall of dark smoke. Blackened pieces of aluminum skin shredded into unrecognizable bits mixed randomly with charred suitcases and seats torn loose from their moorings. Teams of white-suited men worked not far from him, sifting through the detritus. One group was zipping something into a long, black plastic bag._

 _A heavy feeling of horror and grief saturated him, shot through with tense fear. Ray had been on this plane, he knew that with utter certainty. A sick feeling of helplessness overwhelmed him and curdled his stomach as he imagined the aircraft twisting apart in midair and falling to the ground in flames, his friend trapped inside._

 _

"Dr. Venkman?" a man called to him, straightening from a body bag over to Peter's left. "Could you come here for a moment?" 

His feet dragging with dread, Peter complied. The rescue worker who'd called him squatted down next to the encased body and pushed back just enough of the plastic to expose a man's forearm. Bloodied and scorched, it was not identifiable in itself, but the limp hand lifted up for Peter's inspection was adorned by the class ring he knew Ray always wore.

_

Peter awoke, his breath shuddering deep in his chest, cheeks wet with tears. _Ray doesn't wear his class ring!_ he reminded himself frantically. _That can't have been him._ A moment later rationality asserted itself further and he lifted his head far enough to glimpse the snoring lump across the room in Ray's bed. It felt good, for a few seconds, to reassure himself that Ray wasn't gone from them on any trip. The reassurance vanished almost immediately as the rest of his conscious mind caught up with his emotions and reminded him that Ray wasn't going to take any more plane rides at all. Bitterness welled up with the silent tears that had come in his sleep and the feelings of empty loss and helpless fear accompanied him the rest of the night. 

* * *

_The class eight demon roared and increased the strength of the lightening bolts it flung at them. The ghostbusters had been foolish to attempt to capture something so powerful in the first place, but hindsight was useless. Strained by the extreme use of countering the energies thrown at them by the creature, their packs were rapidly approaching burn-out. Ecto and its mounted cannon were too far away to reach without being incinerated, and Egon realized the only hope the team had of defeating their foe was to set two packs to overload and then keep the monster close enough to the blast zone to be destroyed in the explosion._

 _Calling out his suggestion, he got grim nods of assent from his friends. Winston and Peter maintained their covering fire while Ray and he quickly set the timed sequence for an overload explosion. Looking up as the switches locked into place, their eyes met. "I'm sorry," Egon said, knowing the words were inadequate._

 _

"It's OK," Ray said. "At least we're all together. See you on the Other Side." 

As his friends braced themselves and spoke formal phrases of good-bye, Egon waited for the white flare of light that would be the only warning he would have of the end of his life and everything in it he had truly loved. The wait seemed to go on forever.

_

* * *

His body already more than half shut-down and accelerating into moribundity with every breath, Ray slept the solid, dreamless sleep of the already dead. 

* * *

Morning dawned clear, the previous day's rain leaving a clean, wet smell in the air and the streets washed free of city grit for a few brief hours. The firehouse windows had been left open a few inches over night and the warm, damp air stirred the curtains and freshened the atmosphere. The charm of springtime in the city was lost on Peter. 

Groggy from the poor, nightmare-haunted sleep he'd only gotten a few hours of, Peter hovered over Ray's bed, unsure of what to do. Stantz was still deeply asleep, and he looked comfortable and secure. Venkman knew how much he hated it when anyone awakened him out of such a state and was loathe to disturb his friend's peace. In all the time they'd spent together since Ray's fate was known, he'd never thought to ask if Ray wanted to slip away quietly in his sleep, or be conscious for every last minute he had to live. By Egon's calculations those last minutes were near, and Peter desperately wanted to make the right choice for his friend. 

Joining him silently, Winston bent over to lay one hand on Ray's shoulder, but Peter pulled him back as soon as he saw what Zeddemore intended. "What are you doing?" Venkman hissed. 

Looking puzzled, Winston replied, "Waking Ray up. What did it look like?" 

Grabbing Winston's elbow and towing him away from Ray's immediate vicinity, Peter kept his voice low as he asked intently, "Did he ask you to?" 

"No, man, but it's morning and he likes to get up about now. What's wrong with waking him?" 

Lowering his tone even further, Peter asked, "Wouldn't you want to slip away in your sleep if you had a choice?" 

Understanding flooded Winston's dark eyes with sympathy. Gently, he replied, "Not if it wasn't going to hurt, and my family was there with me. It'll be OK, Pete, he'd rather face it with us than not know we were there." 

Closing his eyes, Peter swallowed hard and nodded once. He barely felt the warmth of the reassuring pat on his shoulder over the chill of dread settling into his bones. Over the quiet sound of Winston waking Ray, Peter took several deep breaths, steeling himself to serenity by methodically shutting down his emotions one by one until only a gentle, generous affection was left active. When he opened his eyes and turned, his gaze was clear and calm and he moved to Ray's bedside with no hesitation. 

While Peter had been concentrating, Egon had returned with a PKE meter. He hadn't dressed either, and as the small, pajama-clad group gathered around Ray, the physicist stared down at the device in his hands, his expression immeasurably sad. 

"Can you get up?" Winston inquired. 

Strain twisted Ray's face briefly but only his arms moved, and only very slightly. He looked up at them, fright and resignation mingling in his features. "No," he admitted in a small voice. "I can't move much at all." Recovering his composure, he asked with deliberate tranquillity, "How long?" 

"The recalculated accumulation curves predict less than an hour," Egon said formally. Carefully setting the meter down on the low table beside the bed, he straightened as if bearing the weight of the firehouse on his shoulders. "The readings confirm the estimate. Beyond that I can't be more specific." 

Ray sighed, as if he'd planned an unimportant errand and was mildly disappointed there wouldn't be enough time to accomplish it. But his eyes didn't leave his friends, watching them avidly as if to impress them so indelibly upon his mind he would not lose the memory no matter what distance separated him from them. 

"What can we do for you?" Peter asked quietly. 

"I...don't want to be alone," he whispered. 

Peter nodded, somehow still able to keep his face serene and open although his eyes glittered brightly. Helping Ray to sit up and shift back against the headboard, he slid himself between Ray and the top of the bed, then settled Ray's weight back against his chest, head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. Wrapping his arms around the younger man, he lay his cheek on the fine, rumpled auburn hair, his mask of control slipping for a second as Ray shivered in his arms. 

Egon stood silently by until they were settled, then sat down on the edge of the bed facing them. Hesitating for a moment, he reached out and took both of Ray's hands in his as if afraid to ask for more. Ray raised damp eyes to him and tugged, asking without speaking, and Egon slowly leaned forward until his head rested on Ray's chest. Letting go of Ray's hands, he worked his arms under the body beneath him and around Ray's waist. Holding on as a drowning man might cling to a log, he listened to the slowing, stumbling beat of Ray's heart under his ear. 

Standing next to the bed, Winston watched as Ray's trembling hand came to rest on Egon's hair and stroked it lightly once or twice before falling motionless. He saw the momentary tightening of Egon's arms as he tried to hold on to the life of his friend, and in time he knew the precise moment Ray's heart ceased to beat the same way Peter did: the single, hoarse sob Egon gave. The tears they had kept bottled away from Ray's sight flowed then, and both men shook with their near-silent, overwhelming grief. Unable to bear seeing their pain, feeling his own tears well upward and wishing there was something he could say that would make Ray's death seem meaningful, Winston turned his eyes aside from the tableau on the bed. 

The PKE meter on the low night stand gave him something to focus on and he stared uncomprehendingly at its face for a few seconds whose pain could have lasted him forever before the meaning of what he saw reached past the numbing grief and made sense to him. The reading was gone, the ectoplasm that had killed Ray completely inactive. Without it blocking his nervous system, Ray had no reason not to live, just as he'd had no reason not to see when the stuff had been pulled from his optic nerve. 

Acting on his knowledge, Winston sprang forward and pulled Egon away from Ray's body. Ignoring the physicist's shocked exclamation and Peter's protest, he pulled the corpse horizontal, out of Peter's hold and with a rough thud down to the floor. Quickly straddling Ray's torso, Zeddemore began a series of chest compressions, pausing only to lean over and force a breath into Ray's lungs. 

"Are you crazy?" Peter demanded, shoving at him. Winston stubbornly resisted the attempt to dislodge him, continuing his efforts. 

His voice breaking with emotion, Egon pleaded from where he still sat on the floor next to Ray's randomly outflung arm, "Winston, stop it, please. He's gone." 

"No," Winston grunted, paying more attention to his counting than to answering the others. "Doesn't have to be." He was able to get a second breath pushed into Ray before Peter recovered sufficiently to brace himself against the headboard and lean far enough over to forcibly bulldoze Winston off of Stantz. 

"Can't you let him be in peace?" Venkman shouted angrily. His outburst covered the first gasp for air that Ray made on his own and no one saw his chest move with returning life. As Winston doggedly tried to return to his task, ignoring Peter's imprecations and obstruction with silent, urgent determination, Ray drew another shaky breath and groaned. The sound froze everyone for a split-second, then Peter scrambled off the side of the bed himself and pounced on the feebly twitching invalid. "Ray? RAY?!" 

Scrambling up off the floor, Egon lunged for the PKE meter. With quaking hands he held it over Ray, repeating the scan twice before daring to believe the results. "It's gone," he said, wonder coloring his voice. "He's absolutely clean." 

"The hell with that," Peter said, staring into Ray's bewildered eyes and watching the realization dawn there. "He's alive." As if to make sure there would be no confusion about it in Ray's mind, Peter dragged him upright and wrapped his arms around him, holding on tightly and murmuring, "You're back, Ray, it's OK now." All the feelings he had locked away finally broke free and silenced him with the need to simply hold Ray close until he could bring himself to some kind of equilibrium. 

Egon moved closer and contented himself with resting one hand on Ray's head as he stared down into the puzzled brown eyes which sought him out. "The ectoplasm had to be attracted to brain wave generation," he theorized, only half aware he was speaking aloud. "When the electrical activity ceased, the material lost its own cohesiveness and dissipated completely." 

"Yeah," Winston breathed from beside him. "All gone." 

Turning a stunned look on Winston, Egon asked, "How did you know?" 

Smiling through the tears that hazed his dark eyes, Winston looked embarrassed. "I didn't know for sure, but when I saw the meter zero out it seemed logical and I hoped." 

Finally letting go of Ray enough to look at the other two, Peter grinned weakly at them and addressed Zeddemore. "Anything you want, man, you can have it. Fame, fortune, my black book...." 

"Your car, your wife...." Winston laughed, lightheaded with relief. "Just gimme your spot there for hugging on Ray for a minute." 

Giving Ray one last rib-creaking squeeze, Peter complied. "Done. For now." 

* * *

It was some time later before everyone, including Slimer, had finally gotten their fill of welcoming Ray back to the living. Still weak but improving steadily, Ray had decided he didn't want to go to the hospital for a check-up, he did want to take a shower, and he very definitely did not want to argue any more about not going to the hospital. What he did want was to celebrate, so an impromptu reprise of the previous day, albeit a more carefree version, was undertaken. It was a fervently jubilant, private party where the laughter and love flowed freely. Every now and then Ray would wander around the house leaning out the windows and taking deep breaths of the fresh, humid air, just for the joy of smelling springtime in it. More frequently, one of the other ghostbusters would break into a broad, sunny smile, just for the contentment of knowing they had escaped a terrible loss. 

After the second game of Twister was over, Slimer having won again, Ray went on another tour of the house. Winston decided he felt too good not to call home and talk to his family, and Peter found himself suddenly alone with the spud importuning him for another game. Mildly concerned, recalling the pained way Egon had extricated himself from the bottom of the pile of bodies that had resulted from the first game, Venkman went in search of the missing man. 

As he had expected, he found Spengler in the third floor lab. Egon's retreat to his lab was almost as predictable as Slimer's inevitable beeline for the fridge. Staring at the wall with an unhappy crease in his brow, Egon seemed to be contemplating some place a million miles away from the exuberant fun that had been reigning in the room below. 

"What's the matter?" Peter asked, keeping the question quiet enough not to startle Egon unduly. 

"What could be wrong?" Swinging around to face him, the physicist sounded as confused as he looked. "Ray's alive and will be fine. I should be happy, but...." He waved one hand aimlessly. "I'm not. I don't know what I feel, except maybe stupid." 

Sensing the unadmitted degree of turmoil within his friend, Peter answered with careful neutrality. "With all we've been through lately, I'd be surprised if any of us had a clearly identifiable single reaction to it. I've got quite a collection myself, and stupid is definitely in there somewhere." Probing closer to what he suspected was bothering Spengler more, he added, "And guilt, for ignoring the obvious." 

Egon looked at him sharply. "What was obvious?" 

Drifting closer to him, Peter looked uncomfortable. "What you were going through. What Ray needed. The things I should have known to do because I'm a trained professional in this, except I had my head up my butt so far I couldn't even guess how anybody else was feeling. What else was there to miss?" 

"Everything," Egon muttered, his expression darkening with self-reproach. 

"Like the real cure?" Peter suggested gently, close enough to whisper it and be heard as clearly as a conscience. 

"How could I not have seen it?" Egon cried with tortured vehemence. "How could I have been so blind to what was going on? None of us had to go through this, not if I'd known what the hell I was doing." 

"You're a genius, but you're also human." Egon interrupted with a snort, tossing his head in instant denial of any praise for his intellect, but Peter stilled him with a hand on his shoulder and continued with unruffled conviction, "You're a man who loves his friends and has fears for them like all the rest of us. Whatever you may have been told, you're not a cold, distant intellect observing life from outside. Being involved is the only thing you can blame for not being more purely analytical." 

"If I weren't so involved, Ray wouldn't have had to die." His anger had faded, but the pain was still there. "How can I justify that?" 

"You can't give up your feelings, Egon, and if you even acted like you wanted to try, I'd smack you upside the head so fast your hair would uncurl. Cut yourself some slack, big guy, and accept a few limitations. It's about time you found yours, the rest of us have been living with ours all our lives." He shook his head fondly and threw a mock punch at Egon's shoulder. "We normal humans know we have limits and we're doing OK accepting them. Give us a chance to get used to the idea you have them too, and we'll be fine. It won't make any difference in how we treat you, I promise." 

Egon smiled tentatively, deliberately firming his jaw against its treacherous tendency to tremble. "Too bad," he rasped. "I'd hoped for an improvement." 

"That's the spirit," Peter approved wholeheartedly. "It's that boundless, unfounded optimism that's gotten us where we are today, and don't you forget it." 

The smile came easier this time, and although his eyes still had a bright luster they weren't near to overflowing. "Damn. I'd been hoping we had more going for us than that." 

"Don't knock it, Egon, it's the one thing we need to hold on to. When we're really needed, when the future looks most impossible, that's when we do what we're best at. Coming through for each other when it's important is all anyone can ask of us, and we've both managed it. Be proud of yourself." 

"I'm more proud of Winston." Sighing, Egon pulled his glasses off and polished the lenses on his shirtfront. "He's the one who saved Ray's life for us." 

"By not giving up." Plucking the glasses out of Egon's hands and peering up through them at the ceiling before duplicating their cleansing on his own shirt, Peter surreptitiously monitored the reaction he was getting. By the time he placed the glasses on Egon's nose the physicist had completely regained his equanimity. 

"I wish you wouldn't do that." Egon resettled the glasses to his own taste, favoring Peter with a temperate glare over the tops of the rims. 

"Hmm, exasperation. You're either feeling better or getting hungry," Peter observed judiciously. 

"Both," Egon confessed with mild surprise. 

* * *

"What the?" Pulling a carafe half-full of a bright, clear yellow fluid out of the fridge, Peter sniffed it gingerly and wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Egon, are you collecting urine samples now? How many times have I told you not to store your experimental crap in the kitchen refrigerator?" He peered more closely at the carafe. "And what are those little floaty bits? This is gross!" 

Egon took the carafe from his hand and calmly put it to his own lips, taking several swallows as Peter's eyes bugged out in amazed revulsion. "A particularly good batch," he said consideringly, holding the container to the light and admiring the color. 

"Go on, Pete, try it," Winston urged, grinning wickedly. "I thought it was surprisingly tasty myself, although I prefer it fresh and warm." 

"It microwaves quite well," Egon said with a perfectly straight face as Peter backed away from him with an almost panic-stricken expression. "Would you like me to heat some for you?" 

"BLEAH!" 

"What's the matter, Peter? Don't you like chamomile tea?" Ray asked innocently as he strolled into the kitchen and caught the last exchange. 

"What?" 

"Chamomile tea," Egon said, his gaze calm and ingenuous but for the mischievous sparkle that escaped his control. "Why, what did you think it was?" 

"Tea. I knew that," Peter said defensively. "I just don't like that herbal junk. Tea ought to have caffeine in it or it's not really tea, is all." 

"Yeah, of course." Winston nodded sagely, then broke into a hearty chuckle. "Egon, you really had him going," he crowed. 

"Fine," Peter sniffed, slinging an arm around Ray's shoulders as if claiming an ally. "If you want to be that way maybe I won't let either of you come with us." 

"Where are we going?" Ray asked, leaning naturally into Peter's side and crossing his arms over his chest. 

"Fiji," Peter whispered loudly aside to him, and Ray's eyes lit with delight. 

"Those tickets! You didn't cash them in?" He was almost bouncing with excitement at the prospect. "Wow! When do we leave?" 

"Whenever you want to," Peter told him, then cast an archly superior look at Egon and Winston. "These bozos, on the other hand, are going to be lucky if we let them tag along to carry the luggage." 

"Yes, bwana," Winston sighed, but he was grinning almost as widely as Ray. 

"I wouldn't mind staying home instead," Egon said, his expression going thoughtful. "There are several things I've been meaning to train Slimer to do but never had enough quiet time to get to." The measuring look he gave Peter wasn't overtly threatening, but it left little doubt as to the sort of tricks he would be teaching Slimer if left to his own devices for too long. 

"OK, OK! You're coming too, just so I can keep an eye on you," Peter conceded ungraciously. 

* * *

On the last evening on the island before they flew home, the four of them went walking on the beach late at night. Close to midnight there were only one or two couples wandering along the shore, absorbed in themselves, and the four ghostbusters had a private section of paradise all to themselves. The air was at the exact perfect temperature and humidity that felt neither cool nor warm but was utterly comfortable because it could not be detected at all. Nearly full, the moon lit the night with an even, silvery glow that frosted the palm trees and waves with soft clarity. Shoulder to shoulder across the firm, wet sand at waterline, they strolled barefoot for a while letting the sound of the ocean hissing on the sand accompany their thoughts as the waves lapped at their feet. 

Finally Ray broke the companionable silence, his voice pitched low and soft to blend with the peaceful ambiance surrounding them. "When I died that day, and then woke up with all of you around me, I thought I'd gone to heaven. After today, I wonder if that isn't what happened after all. But if I'm really still alive, I'm glad." His gaze met each of theirs, luminous with affection and happiness. 

Peter spoke for all of them when he answered, "So am I." 

"Thanks, guys. This was the best vacation ever." 

Winston's quiet reply was as mellow as the mood that had settled on them. "It was all Pete's idea, m'man. Thank the poor fool who gave him his credit limit." 

"Pity da fool," Egon amended, and Peter hooked an arm around the blond's waist and dragged him into the surf. Yelping with indignant protest, Egon had just enough time to grab Ray's arm, but Stantz proved to be a poor anchor. Laughing with delight, he took hold of Egon's arm and helped Peter pull him into the warm water and push him over. 

"No fair!" Winston objected, though the sight of Egon rising from the moonlit surf like an emerging monster in a bad Japanese film, his hair dragging in his eyes, left him nearly helpless with laughter. 

"Whoop!" Peter was trying madly to wade out of the water ahead of the pursuing physicist, but Winston shrugged, kicked off his sandals, and tackled Venkman at the waterline. Egon arrived and between him and Winston, they picked Peter up bodily, carted him forward a few feet, and flung him into the next oncoming wave. 

They wrestled, splashed, and cavorted in the water until they were breathless, then rested on the glorious beach with smiles so wide their cheeks began to ache. Peter complained all the way back to the hotel that his shorts were full of sand; which, as Egon pointed out with impeccable logic, proved conclusively they were not in heaven. 

* * *

Peter sat at his desk reviewing the day's mail with a slight frown tensing his forehead. The bills for the last month had all come in as if they had been coordinated, and the worst of the lot, not unexpectedly, was his own credit card statement. Sure, the trip to Fiji had been his own idea, and it had been a hell of a good time, but had he really wanted to pay six month's personal income to celebrate? Celebrate Ray still being alive, and you're bitching at the cost? What a slimeball, he reproved himself, but the charge record spreading over two pages in front of him looked no more palatable for being compared to what the expenses for a funeral would have been. First class air and a suite at the Westin resort? What was I thinking? 

Upstairs there was a loud thud, a scramble, and then racing footsteps crossed the room above him. Tilting his head, he traced the progression of sound, forming a mental image of the chase going on. From his office area, he could see the top of the fire pole above the filing cabinets in front of him, and when the noise reached that point, Ray came hurtling down the pole, Slimer in hot pursuit. 

Hitting the main level, Stantz ran for the car parked in the middle of the brick floor. "Safe!" he yelled breathlessly, and Peter guessed they were still using Ecto's hood ornament as base despite Winston's dire warnings to leave the car untouched until after Saturday's show. 

A squishy splat, Slimer's triumphant cry of, "You're it!" and Janine's simultaneous shriek of rage were followed by Ray's, "Yipe!" There was a brief scuffling sound, then Ray thundered up the stairs taking them two at a time, gaining on the fleeing spud. Janine trailed him by a length with a murderous expression on her face, a smear of green slime across her front from chin to the neckline of her blouse, and a stapler clutched in her right hand. 

Picking up his pen, Peter began filling in the check, a smile replacing his earlier look of dissatisfaction. Some things are cheap at any price. 

* * *

(1) On Your Shore, Enya, SBK Songs Ltd. 1988


End file.
